Once I decided to do a website for my "Uncle's" furniture shop I had to start with the development process. When thinking about the intent and purpose I wanted the site to have, I wanted to keep it simple but attractive for the viewer but also following all the assignment guidelines and requirements. I started from scratch, building the background first, and selecting an attractive image for the home page of the site to get the design aspect going. Once I had that decided, I started to build each page that would be in the design of the site as well. I referenced other online furniture shops to aid in the design aspect. (Vermont Wood Studios) I went with a Home page, Shop by Room, About Us, Custom Orders, and Sale page. I felt that this would best present the user with all the information that they would need from this type of site. With doing this I could also cover all the assignment requirements by building these pages. In the HTML the home page provides the use of URL in the navigation bar code to allow the user to get back to the home page seamlessly. The Shop by Room page displays a table for the user to show the price data of the cost to purchase a full room set. The Custom Orders page has the use of an encoded URL to display the video. It also provides two types of forms, one with radio buttons to that allows the user to pick which type of furniture they will be inquiring about and an input section to type their information as well as a place to submit text. All of this can be submitted with the send button which will send the information to the websites e-mail address. With the sale page I created figure captions to provide the price of the furniture in the picture that they hover over. This design really allows for a pleasant experience when searching though the site.
The overall design I had in mind was neutral colors, with the same font throughout, bolding the important information that I wanted to standout. I didn't want to overwhelm the user by bright and different colors that would take away from the pictures and information. By keeping it seamless with the same neutral colors, header, footer, and navigation bar on each page allowed for a pleasing presentation. I felt that by doing this the site would really be able to showcase the furniture to the user, while still providing all the information that they need to contact the designer if they wanted to make a purchase. I wanted to keep it professional and easy to find information. I feel that I did this by keeping the information provided simple but informative and displaying images that would show the type of furniture that can be made.
For the future the design of the site is made easy to develop upon as the business grows. With it being a small business, the site fits the business stature at the present time. As the company grows I would like the site to grow with it, enabling hovering menus and a breakdown of the types of furniture by page. The pages will be filled with every type of furniture offered with a price displayed. That way the user could select which room they are shopping for and be able to see every piece of furniture made for that room available. The future growth will also provide website order placement. That way the customer won't have to call or come in to place the order if they see something they love. If I would have had more time and experience with site building I would have made this site more modern with a lot of features that would advertise to the user but still follow the simple theme to not overwhelm. I would work more on providing hovering drop down menus that would allow access to more pages and better design layout for images and information. Overall I'm very pleased with how the site came out and I really enjoyed building it.
Google Image Search. (2018). Handmade furniture [photograph]. Retrieved from http://google.com/image
Vermont Woods Studios. (2018). Custom Wood Furniture - Vermont Woods Studios. Retrieved from https://vermontwoodsstudios.com/categories/custom-wood-furniture?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsbT1mr7z2AIVQVgNCh36wwTJEAAYBCAAEgIfPPD_BwE