Documentation of the Development Process
Focus -
My uncle owns a small outdoor shop that caters to sportsman of all types. The focus of the website is to allow people to access his shop online, and direct people to products that may help them. He also wants to have a forum where people can chat about the outdoors.
Purpose- The purpose of the website is to expand his small business to the online world. This includes his branding, description about the business and a spot where people can discuss the outdoors. People should care about this website because it will be informative, simple to navigate, and feel like a small business, but virtual..
Desired Results-
The desired result of the website is that people search for products and engage in conversations. If people discuss items like products that work well, or that the fishing is good, people may be more likely to visit the store, purchase items like fishing bait and tackle, and return to the website to view more conversations. Some steps that I have taked to reach this is to review my desired resutl of the website. Be sure that that was in focus. I have done research on how to add elemets like images and videos to the web pages to enhance the user experience.
Defense of the Final Product
General Page Template Design
For the general design a simple easy to follow graphic design. I will have simple page grid with discrete functional areas. I will have moderate white space to keep the simplicity of the website due to my expected target group. I will use a clear hierarchy of contrast to keep important items in focus and secondary items in the peripheral. I will use similar principles in the layout, so users can easily flow through major content and elements of the page. I will continue the theme with the supporting web pages as well to keep the consistency, varying color schemes slightly to make navigation easier.
Choice of Color Palette
I plan on using an “outdoorsy” color palette for the website because of the type of business. I plan on using a lighter color in the background with the darker colors in the front to help stand out. Each page will have a slightly different background color to help differentiate between home page and supporting pages. The specific colors include, Brown, lite brown, dark green, light green, blues, and orange for some highlighted items. I may include some “high Visibility” colors as borders to help some items pop a bit extra. I will keep the overall color palette consistent on each page, and only vary a little between the supporting pages.
Typography Choices
I plan to keep the typography very consistent through the website. My audience is a mix of young and old, leaning towards older, so simple is often better. I feel “Open Sans”, is a good easy to read font for the body of the pages. I will use something a bit fancier, like ‘Rosario” or ‘Playfair Display” for headlines. I may use all capital letters or bolding, and italic style if I need to make something in the body pop or need to make the letters stand out a bit more.
Opportunities for Improvement
Some opportunities I would like to do is to improve my alignment of items in the website. I would also like to add a chat forum to the home page and align it on the right side of the screen. On the left side of the home page screen I would like to add links to new gear, a small video or two. I would also like to add some different fonts to some of the headers to make them stand out more. In addition, I think adding a wall paper to the background will enhance the overall look and feel of the website, keeping each page with a background that is similar to the theme of the particular page. In addition, I would add more content to each page, keeping them interesting and eye catching.
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