I'm glad I finally got through my first time designing a website and carrying it through (kind of) to the end product. My website was for Vinyl Collectors around the world.
I identified this audience as a smaller community globally, but it's quite a big local community for me to tackle, so I gave a basic idea as to how it might work. I had a lot of trouble with the coding etc from the start as I was a week behind, missing 3 classes, and then having to miss another 2 because of the Typography focus week that was being held for my paper. Annoying. However, I pushed through and kicked my A into G.
My grid was simple enough in terms of a mainframe, and the menu bar was always to be at the left hand side of the page, no matter what section the user was in. I wanted it to be graphic but easy to use. Instead of having a home button, I chose to use The Collective logo to route the user back to the home page, where all the albums were showcased.
I wanted the homepage to be visually captivating as well as informing about the artist, and didn't want the user to have to leave the home page to view the information, therefore used an overlay javascript to achieve this, and just inserted the image I wanted to show. If I had had more time, I would have made the scrolling, and the 'Buy Now' button work, but you get the picture.
I like the way the site moves from page to page, but if I was to do anything differently I would go through the site with a fine-tooth comb and weed through all the text, although it's clear.
The site is community based simply by being able to swap and share the records in a web to physical form, and being able to post on the forums, and view user profiles, connect on social networking sites and share thinking about LP's and music in general.
I recieved some good feedback at the class, which if I choose to, should enable me to build the site more, as there is a definite audience out there who would use a site like this.
NB: If you look at the last post I did, it shows how the overlays work with each page. Thanks.
