| Planning Process | Formative Evaluations | Validation and Accessibility |
Lakeside Product Company is a wholesale distributor of school supplies, craft supplies, teacher supplies, toys, and novelty items. The company was founded in 2000 and currently has two stores, one in Cincinnati and the other in Louisville. Lakeside would eventually like to expand into the surrounding regional cities.
This includes teachers (mostly through grade 6), daycares, and church groups. The main focus is put on these customers because they are the company's main source of income. Lakeside wants to make the catalog available on the web for these customers.
This includes the owner, employees, competitors, and any other customers that buy products from Lakeside.
I conducted an interview with the owner, Zack, about what he wanted on the website. Lakeside currently has a website that was put together by their web hosting company; however, it is lacking in design and it currently has no impact on business. Zack wants to be able to get a decent website up and running, then in the future go to online ordering. I have determined the following needs:
The goal of developing this website is to have a presence on the world wide web. Zack wants his customers to be able to download an order form and look at the price list online. In the future, Zack wants to start a online store, which I am planning to help with (This sounds like a big task, so I am not going to try and complete it now! Maybe by next year!) It is important for Zack to be on the web because many of his competitors already have websites that are fully functional with online purchasing.
The website will have the following unique contributions:
- Contact information, directions, site map, catalog, order form, hours of operation.
- Coupon, sale items, explain unique items.
- Calendar, possible links to educational websites for teachers, updates of new products.
- Include an sign up for a mailing list, have a comment section for improvements/suggestions.
- Possible link to mapquest, but I think one has to get permission to do this. Possible external links for educational websites for teachers (maybe)?
I conducted four formative evaluations for the Lakeside Products Website: 1. customer (4th grade teacher), 2. former employee/customer/relative of the owner, 3. owner, 4. non customer (unbiased opinion). I asked each person some standard questions dealing with navigation, design, overall appearance, dislikes and likes, and suggestions. I also asked the owner and former employee about their thoughts about the website in relation to the company.
I actually know one of the regular customers at Lakeside (4th grade teacher), so I decided to ask her to comment on the website when I had the rough draft completed. The customer said that the website was easy to navigate. She thought the colors needed improvement, it was too bland. However, I explained to her that when you start adding to many colors it becomes destracting, and since this was a new website I did not want it too busy looking. I was glad that I conducted this evaluation early because the teacher also suggested putting pictures next to the sale items, which I was planning to do, and forgot. This gave me enough time to fix the problem. Some other comments from the teacher included: wanted a way to order online, was excited to see the order form and catalog online, commented that directions were nice to have available, along with the contact information. She even commented that she might use the customer page if Lakeside kept it up-to-date and continously added more sites!
The former employee said he really liked that I was able to get the store logo online. He also really liked the banner across the top of each page. The former employee said the design and colors looked great because the store colors are white and blue. Overall, the website is a good representation of the company. There was also a suggestion to put more pictures of products online for customers. This is something I hope to work on in the future.
The owner was very excited to have contact information, directions, the order form, and price catalog online. He also thought it was great that I was able to put the logo online, he really liked the banner across the top of each page. Overall, he liked the design and navigation system. The owner and I have discussed making a better navigation system with the price catalog, he wants me to continue working on the website.
This person had never heard of Lakeside before; however, she made some excellent suggestions. Overall, the non-customer thought the website was easy to navigate and overall the design was good. Some small, yet important suggestions were made: put a date on the coupon for how long it is valid, put a date on when the sale items end, and make a navigation system for the price catalog. I was able to fix the first two issues rather quickly. However, I am working a better way to display the price catalog. It took so much time to put the price catalog together as it is right now. I should have a new price catalog design up and running by the end of December (after this semester)! The non-customer commented on the Lakeside Banner across the top of the page. She thought it was a great idea and consistently displayed.
I did not try to validate my code until I was finished with the website. I was extremely happy because I only had one page that did not validate on the first try! I was able to find the mistake quickly because Dreamweaver has lines on the left side of the coding page. The CSS was correct on the first try. Overall, validation has become an easier process because my coding has improved.
AccessibilityBobby 508 Accessibility is alway an interesting experience. While testing each page I ran into the following possible issues:
The first issue dealing with the style sheet is fine because without the style sheet the page is still readable. The second issue related to colors is not a concern because all the colors can be viewed in a black and white screen. I provided alternative text for all pictures/graphics, so if the user cannot view the graphic, it is possible to get a clear picture from the description. I did not have tables that required headers, so it is not necessary to worry about structural markup. Overall, I think I did everything necessary to make the website is Section 508 Accessible.
