Client:
The Comfort & Mobility Shop
Description:
Online shop and web presence for an existing small business.
Technology:
Joomla Content Management System, XHTML, CSS, PHP
Note:
Client has taken control over website content.
Exceptions: some code necessary for the Content Management System to be compatible with all systems.
The Brief:
- Design a site that reflects the look and feel of the existing, established shops.
- Develop an e-commerce section where smaller products can be sold directly from the website.
- Detail larger products that need more specialist advice.
- Promote the new "Shop-2-U" service.
- Allow the client to be able to update and maintain the content of the site themselves.
Details/Discussion:
Layout & Structure.
My first priority on this projects was to find a suitable Content Management System (CMS). After much research I settled on Joomla. It ticks all the boxes and comes with an excellent reputation, and a well established support network.
Design.
The next stage was to adapt Joomla to look and feel like the existing shops, using the existing logo and branding. The site also has to reflect the friendly, family feel of the business.
I've had to concede a few non-standard elements of code in the framework that Joomla uses in order to make it work on all the various platforms out there. It's one of those pragmatic decision that crop up in the real world. However I can assure you that the basic XHTML and CSS are standards compliant.
Content.
Adding the product information into VirtueMart shopping cart is very similar to Joomla, which in itself closely follows word processing software in terms of style and function. Products can be categorized, put on special offer, include photographs which can be viewed as a larger image, and much more.
The VirtueMart shopping cart software also handles the order taking. It calculates the shipping costs, takes customer details, creates and account for them and then hands them over to the payment gateway when the all important credit card details need to be processed.
Discuss
Further discussion of the styles and techniques used to create this website can be found on my blog. Please feel free to leave any comments of you may have.