Darkrooms & Digital - Boston University de… · Web viewThe company, Darkrooms & Digital, ... Additionally, the page views, clickstreams, and time spent will be used to improve

Darkrooms & Digital

Functional Design Assignment

AD 648

August, 2009

Kay Grisenthwaite

Darkrooms & Digital Proprietary Information Page 1

Table of Contents

Project Overview.........................................................................................................................................3

Company Information..............................................................................................................................3

Goal of the Site........................................................................................................................................3

Organization Information Culture............................................................................................................3

Team Members.......................................................................................................................................3

Primary Audience and Secondary Users..................................................................................................4

Audience Demographics and Psychographics..........................................................................................4

Site Guidelines and Platform...................................................................................................................5

Role of Current Resources.......................................................................................................................5

Database Needs.......................................................................................................................................5

Security Needs.........................................................................................................................................6

Visual and Functional Details.......................................................................................................................7

External User Site Map............................................................................................................................7

Internal User Site Map.............................................................................................................................8

Screen Drafts...........................................................................................................................................9

Implementation.........................................................................................................................................11

Special Considerations...........................................................................................................................11

Plans for Implementation......................................................................................................................11

Implementation Challenges...................................................................................................................12


Project Overview

Company InformationThe company, Darkrooms & Digital, provides a unique and personal environment for professional photographers and amateur hobbyists within the community. The company offers a variety of printing enlargers accessible to various formatted cameras for professional black and white printing in addition to a lighting studio equipped with various backdrops, props, and lighting systems for use. Embracing digital photography, computer stations are equipped with all the software and photography equipment necessary for printing digital photographs. The company also provides hand on learning experiences through classes and lectures for photography enthusiasts of all ages, abilities, and interests. A mini-store is available stocked with high-quality printing and matting materials, as well as other photography essentials. The membership-focused photography guild creates a like-minded community for customers to join and offers members-only benefits, including newsletters, member exhibitions, a marketplace for their photography, and discounts on company services.

Goal of the SiteThe site is multi-purposed to act as an information center for external users (potential and existing customers) and an information center for internal users (employees). For external users, the site provides a means to gather information about the company, find out class and lecture schedules, and get contact information if needed. Additionally, the external portion of the site needs to fulfill a marketing purpose by attracting potential customers, drawing customers into the physical locations, and gathering data on customer retention and visits using a cookie. Internal users sign in as an administrator and have the ability to view or modify the class and lecture listings and schedules, change the administrator password, view the administrator help section, and log out.

Organization Information CultureThe company currently has a small staff of five employees. Of the five employees, one has a background in website design and will be responsible for creating and maintaining the site. While there is reluctance among the other employees to expand into an online presence, demands from the growing customer base and photography guild for an informational site have forced the website demand. At this time, the reluctance of employees has limited the site’s potential to an informational site only. However, plans exist in the future to expand into online class registration options and, potentially, some online sales of photography equipment and supplies.

Team MembersThe site will be developed by a team consisting of:

Company Founder and President - responsible for ensuring the website promotes the company and brand accurately.

Website designer and maintainer – responsible for creating the website layouts, programming, maintaining the website once launched, and implementing changes or updates as needed.

Program manager – responsible for gathering requirements from employees and users; researching security issues and usability issues to incorporate the knowledge into the project;


working with the President, designer, and testers to design, create, implement, and test the website.

User testers – members of the photography guild and loyal customers; responsible for testing the site prior to and after implementation to ensure usability and success from a user’s perspective.

The team will develop the specifications of the website based on the customer needs and employee tasks required. The team will also develop and test the website based on the specifications prior to implementation.

Primary Audience and Secondary UsersThe website’s primary audience includes current customers and current guild members who are seeking more information or more convenient sources of information. Having an informational website available will reinforce a positive customer-company relationship and create more loyal customers. Additionally, providing an alternate source of information, instead of relying solely on the employees at the physical location, will allow customers to more freely seek information and can increase class registration and facilities use, increasing profits. As the primary users, the website will be designed to best support the customers’ needs and usability requirements.

In addition to current customers, the external aspects of the website will allow for marketing efforts that range beyond the current campaigns. By optimizing the website for search engines and linking to local chambers of commerce and advertising sites, the website will act as a means to provide additional exposure for the company and reach new, potential customers.

For the internal side of the website, employees will conduct administration tasks. While the administrative section of the website will have a similar look and feel to the external user pages, the administrative section will be designed to incorporate the processes, usability, and tools needed by the employees. This section will be created as a separate module from the external site to fulfill the needs of the administrator while combining usability and practicality.

Audience Demographics and PsychographicsThe website audience is similar to the company’s current customer base. The majority of customers are working professionals, both male and female, with children. These customers typically are amateur or hobby photographers trying to create lasting photographic memories of their children. This segment of the audience is most supportive of the convenience offered by an informational website and wants online registration options.

The other large segment of the audience includes senior citizens who have taken up photography as a hobby. The help available in the digital facilities and the hands on classes provided allow this customer segment to improve their computer skills while also learned digital photography techniques. While this segment is willing to use an informational website, fewer are interested in online registration or online purchasing.


Site Guidelines and PlatformThe site will be created using the ASP.net framework and the C# programming language using customer and employee requirements to create the design. The site will use frames to create the left sidebar and the top bar of the window. Frames will give the website a uniform look and provide context for each of the pages while also providing static navigation links for increased usability.

Data grids will be used to display class and lecture information and to provide the interface for administrative changes to the class and lecture offerings. The data grids will be populated after a search by the user, either external or internal, or by clicking the link for the complete list. Administrators can easily add classes or lectures using a simple form that is validated for completeness and accuracy on submission. To modify the class or lecture information, administrators can use the built-in data grid functionality to edit fields or delete records, validating the changes on submission. An Access database will be used to store the data with a data adapter working as the interface.

The website will be optimized for viewing on personal computers. While the site could be viewed on other mobile devices, it will not be optimized for viewing on smaller screens. However, the site will be compatible with the accessibility options included in Windows, including high contrast and magnifier.

The site will be housed on a server at the physical location of company. A backup file of the website and the database, saved monthly, will be stored at an alternate location to ensure safe data backup.

Role of Current ResourcesOne employee will be designated as the administrator for the site, responsible for updating the class and lecture offerings and running the tracking reports pulled from the database based on cookies from users’ machines. The remaining employees will be expected to use the website as a resource for answering customer questions and to suggest changes or improvements to the website. As customer feedback is received and the use of the website increases, plans for additional marketing efforts and a more robust online presence, including the addition of online registration and purchasing, will be developed using the employees in the original development team and the suggestions from other employees.

Database NeedsThe site will connect to an Access database containing four tables: Admin, Classes, Lectures, and Visitors. The database will contain the information used to populate the class and lecture data grids and to verify the administrator password and actions. Only a logged in administrator will have read/write permissions to the database while all users will have read permissions. The Visitors table will collect information from cookies regarding times visited, page views, search history, and returning visits to be used for demographic information and future website modifications.

To interface between the database and the data adapter and data grids, a dataset is used. The dataset consists of two tables, Classes and Lectures, which are populated with data from the database in order to create the data grids.


Security NeedsCookies will be used to gather information about the external website use and returning visitors. To gather this information, a cookie will be placed on the external user’s machine when the user visits the website for the first time. This cookie will include:

Date and time the user visited Method used to find the website, including the search engine and the search query used Page view count Clickstream Time spent on the website Session count.

As the user visits additional pages on the website, the cookie will update a page view count, clickstream, and the time spent on the website. On subsequent visits, the cookie will be read by the website and the data recorded in the Visitors table of the database. The website will then update the number of times this user has been to the website by increasing the session count of the cookie. This cookie information will provide the company with information about search engine results to improve marketing. Additionally, the page views, clickstreams, and time spent will be used to improve the flow and navigation of the site by analyzing user behavior. The session count will provide useful data about loyal customers versus new customer conversions.

The administrator will log in with a secure password using the Administrator Log In page. A temporary cookie will then be placed on the user’s machine when the user signs in as the administrator. A check for this cookie is used to grant access to the user for several administrator pages. During the log out process, the cookie will be removed from the user’s machine by setting the expiration date equal to the current date and time. Additionally, the website will close the browser window during the log out process to increase security and reduce the risk of unauthorized users gaining access to the administrator functions. The use of an administrator password and cookie helps maintain the integrity of information on the website.

As only one employee will have administrator access, only one administrator account is needed at this time. The database and security protections are expandable to enable future accounts if needed. Furthermore, if a more robust website, including online purchasing or online registration, is required in the future, the website is designed to allow for additional security features with minimal amounts of re-coding.

The server will be protected by a firewall to reduce the ability of outside threats to hack the server or database or denial of service attacks.


Visual and Functional Details

External User Site MapThis site map shows the potential navigation for external users, beginning at the home page and following through the navigation links to the subsequent pages. The current design has links in the left sidebar that appear on all pages for additional information regarding:

Services Helpful Links Class Schedule Lecture Schedule Darkroom Facilities Digital Facilities.

From each of these pages, the external users can navigate back to the home page or to any of the other pages listed in the left sidebar. In the site map below, the links that are specifically mentioned in the content of the pages are listed in the flow. Additionally, the search process for both classes and lectures can be iterative and links the user back to the initial search query page.


Internal User Site Map The internal user site map, below, shows the navigation and information flow for the administrator, or employee, user. From the home page, the administrator chooses the Administrator Log In link, which results in a log in page. After entering the password, the administrator is redirected to an error page or the administrator menu. This menu consists of eleven options as shown below. All of the processes, with the exception of Log Out and Change Password, are intended to be recursive and link the administrator back to the initial add, change, view, or delete page to continue the actions. All pages also include a link back to the administrator menu and include the sidebar with links to the external user sites as shown in the External User Site Map. During the log out process, the website closes the browser window to maintain security.


Screen DraftsThis is the home page, showing the basic formatted layout using frames that will standardize the website and the informational purpose of the current version.

This is a sample data grid, showing the search results from a class search inquiry and links for further navigation.


This is the administrator menu, showing the administrator options available after logging in.

This is an administrator page containing the entry form to add a class to the database. The form is validated upon submission for errors and returns error messages if required data is missing or incorrect.


Implementation

Special ConsiderationsDue to the segment of customers who have older eyes and, potentially, poorer sight, the website must be optimized for low vision and the accessibility options in Windows. The sidebar and top bar mimic the high contrast option in Windows using a black background with bright colors. The content area is easily magnified and the data grids can dynamically adjust for magnified viewing.

With the potential to expand the website in the future for additional features, the security and database designs need to be expandable as well. Using a Microsoft Access database is simple and effective for a small website and is even expandable to a point. However, if the company expands to a point where online purchases and online registration transactions happen in larger numbers than current expected, other database options may need to be researched.

As this is the first online presence this company will have, it is important to consider user feedback and customer needs. If the initial design does not adequately satisfy customers, the company may lose its chance for an online presence and may even turn off customers. Using customer inputs and user feedback during the design and development stage, the company can incorporate the features more desired in order to have a successful first website.

Finally, as the company wants to maintain its community atmosphere and friendly reputation, it is important that the website considers this in the design. To continue this impression online, the website


must be comfortable for users, in both terms of use and appearance. By designing the website around the central branding image of the company, the company can extend its marketing push online and still maintain its core values.

Plans for ImplementationThe initial implementation stage is for the informational website only. As the company’s proficiency and comfort with an online presence increases, plans will be created for creating a more robust site that includes online registration and basic online purchase options.

The design team will create the website design based on the Site Guidelines and Platform and Security Needs. The team will also use input from the user testers and feedback received from employees and customers. Once the website is designed and a functional version is created, it can be tested by the employees and the user testers. During testing, users will be exploring navigation options, checking usability, and ensuring that the website meets specifications created by the development team. Based on feedback from this testing, the website will be modified, if needed, and re-tested. The website design and content may be adjusted after it goes live depending on feedback from users.

Upon completion of testing, the website will be launched on the purchased domain name using a server at the company. Once live, links to the website will be sent to local chambers of commerce, artist communities, and newspapers to network the website and leverage traffic from the existing sites. Brochures, newsletters, and business cards will be amended to include the new website. Additionally, the address will be included in all print and offline marketing campaigns to increase exposure for the company.

Depending on search engine traffic and website hits, a sponsored search strategy may be adopted. This would increase the website’s exposure but may not be necessary if other marketing efforts are successful since the website is informational and not a conduit for business. If the website is successful and the staff not overburdened with maintenance, implementation of the more advanced website may proceed.

Implementation ChallengesThe greatest challenge in implementing this website is getting employee buy in. The employees are currently reluctant to create a website and maintain an online presence because of their unfamiliarity with it. However as the employees begin to see the positive aspects of the website, such as increased ability to accurately maintain class and lecture schedules, decreased customer complaints about lacking a website, and increased customer satisfaction with customer convenience and service related to the website, they will buy in.

Another challenge is creating exposure for the website. While the current customer base and the guild membership provide guaranteed traffic, link placement on other sites will be crucial to gaining hits and converting hits to customers. Partnering with local artist groups or being listed with the chamber of commerce will increase exposure, but the site will also need to rely on word of mouth and search engine


optimization. Depending on the traffic of the site and the company’s growth needs, a more targeted marketing campaign may be needed.

The final challenge is transitioning the site from an informational site to a robust site with information, online registration, and online purchasing. Before the site can be expanded, employees need to fully accept the site as a valuable tool to improve customer service and grow the business. Additionally, the customers who are wary of online transactions need to trust the initial website before changes can be made. This transition will take time and must be done with user and employee feedback to ensure that all parties will actually use the site so that the benefits outweigh the costs.


Documents

Darkrooms & Digital - Boston University de… · Web viewThe company, Darkrooms & Digital, ... Additionally, the page views, clickstreams, and time spent will be used to improve