Golf Discount Direct

  • 04 Feb 2009

This work was completed as part of an educational assessment during my second year at University.

Project Information

Components

  • XHTML
  • CSS
  • AJAX Shopping Cart
  • ASP.NET (C#)
  • jQuery
  • Microsoft access

Notes

This project gave me another chance to improve my design skills and learn more about the specifics of designing the experience of shopping online. For the design direction I really wanted the site to be clean and functional while having a creative touch solidifying that this is a site which provides golf equipment. This was achieved using a very simple layout with gradient colours for the menu bar while having a grass texture in the background with a faded out golf course image behind the content.

This was my first experience with the .NET framework and i have to say a pleasant one. Up until this point i had only used open source web technologies and I was surprised by how well constructed the .NET framework is on the web. I decided not to use the Wizards in Visual Studio as instructed to by my lecturer, and instead taught myself how to do most things in code.

A couple of things that I added to the site to improve user experience is the Ajax shopping basket at the top of the page and a quick search functionality. When a custom clicks the buy product button, rather than being taken to the shopping cart page they are kept on the current page and the basket overview at the top of the page is updated and highlighted using the yellow fade technique. This ensures the user does not loose there context within the site. The live search enhances the experience by suggesting searches at the user types in the search box.