About Page

Documentation of the Development Process

Positive Outlook is a dog training business that offers dog training classes, as well as individual consults. This website is used to offer information about the different services, as well as contact information for the business, and a section for general dog training tips. The main purpose is to help spread awareness of the business and increase the number of people signing up for the offered dog training services. Positive Outlook is specifically looking to bring in younger customers who have recently bought or adopted a new dog or puppy, and lack experience when it comes to training a dog.

The first step in creating the website was to think about the goals of the business, including the target audience. Once that was decided, I began working on the basic structure of the site, and what structure would provide the information to the customers while providing easy navigation. I decided upon an a hierarchical structural, with a header at the top, navigation just below that, followed by the content of the page, and finally the footer. After the structure was decided, I started to think more about the aesthetics.

Defense of the Final Product

The webpage template I had already designed while thinking about the structure was used for every page for consistency. Keeping the layout consistent throughout the website should help the end users with easier navigation. The Training Classes, Individual Classes, and Contact page have tables in the content div to help organize the information. The Home page includes a placeholder business image, to help draw in the viewers while breaking up the monotone of the text.

I chose a more neutral color scheme, and tried to keep the overall website fairly simple, using a blue/gray background, with blue paw prints on it that, while adding a bit of color, also tie into the dog theme of the website. Other blue accents, such as the links and the business logo, work to continue bringing in some color without overwhelming viewers with bright colors or complicated patterns. The background for the content is a very pale, almost white gray. I chose this as, though I like the appearance of white, it can be harsh on the eyes after a while, so by using a pale gray instead, the goal is to lessen the eye strain while still giving the same clean, simple feel that comes with white.

A text-shadow was added to the main website title and navigation links to help them standout more, with a box-shadow added to the dropdown box for the Services section of the navigation for the same reason.

Originally the background of the header, footer, and tables was going to be one solid color. However, once I viewed the website after adding in the other colors, it seemed a bit plain. I tried a few different things, such as adding a border, but it just didn’t seem right. The idea for the gradient background actually came from looking at my keyboard, which has lighted background, and it set to a gradient. In the end, it seemed to add just the right amount of interest, without being visually overwhelming or distracting from the content. The gradient was also added the submit and reset buttons on the Individual Classes and Contact page to add some interest and help them seem less generic.

To keep with the overall theme of a simple, but visually appealing, website, I decided to keep to easy to read fonts. I decided to use Times New Roman for the headers, with serif set as the backup font. The main content uses Helvetica, with sans-serif as the backup. I chose the sans-serif fonts for the majority of the text as I find them cleaner and easier to read, as well as more modern feeling. The serif fonts for a few key areas helps make them stand out from the rest of the text.

Opportunities for Improvement and Growth

In the future, the website could add more pages as the business expands. Potential pages include Testimonials, Training Resources, and a Team page as the business adds more dog trainers. The site could also add in a link to social media pages. With more time or resources, I would have liked to have gotten more feedback on the paw print background, and if it was a truly functional website the general questions form would send the information to an email for the website, and the individual classes form would enter the information into a database. I would also love to add in PHP to include areas such as the header and footer, rather than having to copy the html onto every page.