Challenge

Some of the main thoughts or concerns I had when developing the website were the following...

How will I make the website look clean and sleek, providing that luxury feel of attention to detail, while still allowing it to offer hundreds of different products?

How will I introduce sale items to the online shopper without mixing or undermining newer, full priced selections?

How will I allow the online shopper to easily find what item they are looking for? In other words, how will I set up the website's navigation system(s)?

Approach

First and foremost, I outlined the website with wireframes and got a good sense of the layout. Then, I purchased a Shopify template that aligned with the overall look and layout I was leaning towards.

Before developing or compiling materials to populate the home page of the website, I went ahead and developed the navigation structure that would encompass the site. I allowed the online shopper to choose how to begin their search from the very beginning. They could search directly with the search bar using keywords, or through the menu using product categories, or through the menu again but using a list of brands the company carries. This was a decision I made after asking the store manager and owner what some typical questions they might have gotten from customers when first arriving at the store. In addition to the multifaceted search options, I added a robust filtering option that included many criteria to further narrow down your product search.

After the backbone of the website was created, I began developing the content and elements that would be embedded onto the website. Luckily, much of it was provided by the company's partners and required minimal editing.

The final task which involved editing the the product pages and actually uploading all the products was the difficult and very time consuming portion of this project. I would have to manually upload each product via templates in order to get this done due to not receiving any helping documents from the brand manufacturers or additional help from the company owner. What made the templates especially lengthy was the large number of criteria involved in describing each product, whether it was a watch or piece of jewelry. Because I had added a large amount of filter options, adding in all these details and criteria was essential to the user experience.

At this point the project was able to be closed.