Direct Flower Delivery. Analysis Of The Website - Assignment Example

Documentation and Analysis Of A Website Direct Flower Delivery Executive Summary DFD, Direct Flower Delivery, is a Web based company to cater the Flower needs of people of UK. Its inception into the business is with a sole motive of delivering "Custom designed Flowers with a mouse click". In summary, their main service offering is delivering flowers to their customer's home directly in UK with the convenience of ordering them over internet. The customer also has the advantage of selecting the flowers and the pattern/designs and time frame in which they should be delivered. This document serves as the supporting documentation for the design process of the prototype DFD website. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Website Objectives 3. Description of Target Audience 4. Business Constraints 5. Business Operations 6. Design 7. Software used 8. Conclusion/Future 1. Introduction 1.1. This Report is a Prototype design and documentation details of a web site called "Direct Flowers Delivery". This Web site report details both front and back end capabilities. In inclusion with technical details, this report also consists of the customer interaction specifications. 1.2. DFD, Direct Flower Delivery is a web based Florist to cater the growing Flower needs of people of United Kingdom. There are a large number of companies in UK delivering flowers to their customer's home. People often send flowers, whether it is a birthday, wedding and some other special occasions. Many places such as restaurants, hotels, offices and many houses use flower to decorate the place. Not only flowers are used for specific occasions, there are many people changing their flowers at home once a week. To simplify the ordering procedure of these needs, DFD has evolved and is committed to serve the best to its customers. 1.3. Currently, DFD is serving its customers with its web site. DFD offers wide range of choices to its customers. Through its site, DFD offers whole lot of features to its customer such as the freedom of ordering flowers online, Secured payment transactions, Track the delivery of ordered items and also a reminder service with important dates. 1.4. The highlight of this web based company is that the customers have the advantage of designing their own style, pattern and of course flowers that are be delivered, apart from selecting from the pre-defined templates. 2. Website Objectives The objectives of this web-based florist are to offer features that will permit and promote the following: Ordering flowers with just a click of a mouse. Easy browsing and searching for various regular & seasonal flowers. Web tools which enable secured online payments. Easier accessing of information and help generally. Web tools to foster community relationship and cater their needs. In Simple, to make it easy and offer choices for their customers 3. Description of Target Audience The customers will be anyone in UK who looking for flowers to be sent to someone or themselves, whether for special occasions or to decorate their houses. The company will have a web site which design to make shopping for flowers on the internet quicker and easier. If such availability exists, the company will deliver flowers to the address on the date which has been requested by customers to be sent to. Customers can individually create their own design in flowers over the website and the flower which they create will be send to the address that they request. Customer will be able to track down their deliveries. The company will provide the information on the process of delivery for each individual customer, in order for customers to be able to track down their deliveries. 4. Business Constraints 4.1 Negative Constraints: 4.1.1 As it's a Web-based company, the competition is severe and to handle this aspect the web site and the company has to be on toes 24hours. 4.1.2 It's very hard to predict the volume of business the next day. The customer may be literally from anywhere on this world. If it's Florist on the shop, then the shop-keeper will have the decent idea of the nature and the volume of the business the next day. This helps him stock the flower as needed. 4.1.3 Being a web-based company you never know the nature and the potential of an individual customer. 4.1.4 To stay in the business, the web site has to offer the best deals and not to ignore the customer's personal choice of flowers. 4.1.5 Since it's a web based company, the customers always doubt the credentials regarding delivery and their personal data such as credit card/debit card information. 4.2 Positive Aspects: 4.2.1 Global reach. 4.2.2 Huge Potential. 4.2.3 No fear of over-stocking. Stock as and when you get order. 4.2.4 Very less maintenance charges. 4.2.5 No need to risk of making pre-defined designs. Customer chooses the designs, you deliver. 4.3 Legal Constraints: The disclosure of Customers' details over the internet needs careful monitoring for Data Protection Act compliance. The issues regarding protection of personal data will have to be taken into great consideration. Direct Flower Delivery has been committed to protect the privacy of those customers who use the website and the confidentiality of the personal information is to be handled by the company. 4.4 'Swot' Analysis of this business: 5. Business Operations 5.1 The business website is created in such a way that it will inform the customers about the company, its policies, services and other useful information such as the process and time of delivery. 5.2 The company is dealing with registration and submission of their payment details (e.g. credit card details) in secure way. The ordering of flowers will be implemented in the form of electronic baskets and a minimum payment of 15 pounds. Once customer has made a payment, an email will be sent to the customer with the bill which will be payable online through the web-based system. 5.3 The website is having an option to search for availability and place orders for flowers, in which case an email gets generated for the order and sent to Direct Flower Delivery. They will also have the option to view their current and passed orders at any given time. 5.4 Direct Flower Delivery staffs are having their systems to run either through the Local Area Network of the company or through the Internet under appropriate security measures. The functionality available to the employees include the following: 1. Entering and updating flower data 2. Entering and updating orders 3. Showing available flowers and the next season flowers which will become available 4. Showing current, passed and future orders 5. This is password protected and that not all employees have access to it (for securities reason). 6. Design 6.1. Website story The prototype website has on the whole designed according to the specifications as defined in the PowerPoint storyboard. The FAQ page was created prior to testing but has been removed in response to the overall results of my site tests which identified that most people found it confusing to have both the help page and a FAQ page. Therefore, the information from both was combined and now forms the "help page" (faq.htm). The objective of the website "to deliver flowers to the address on the date which has been requested by customers to be sent to. Customers can individually create their own design in flowers over the website and the flower which they create will be send to the address that they request. Customer will be able to track down their deliveries. The company will provide the information on the process of delivery for each individual customer, in order for customers to be able to track down their deliveries. 6.2. The following design issues have been incorporated to promote usability as follows: Pure White background that is a single colour has been used whilst loud, distracting textures, patterns or images have been avoided. Images with soft focus are displayed. Sufficient contrast between the background/foreground colours and the text has been employed to promote visual receptiveness. The chosen colour scheme for the website has been designed such that it can be over-ridden by the user's browser settings. This is because some people have eye conditions that mean they can read only black on white, while others can read only yellow on black - the design is flexible to enable everyone to read it as far as possible. The use of graphics in place of actual text has been avoided. This is because text size and colour can be changed by the user's browser settings, but a graphic is fixed, and can't be changed in this way. Some blocks of text have not been bold typed because people tend to look for information while clicking on bold and bigger texts. Bold & bigger texts with a different colour are often hyperlinked. All images with flowers are hyperlinked. These hyperlinks lead to information on those flowers such as their price, season of availability, availability of different sizes & colours, current availability, their meaning, appropriate occasion for gifts. A text based site map (site_map.htm) has been created to help visitors to get an impression of the layout of the site quickly, and thus, will make it easier to navigate. No frames have been used because many browsers have difficulty navigating within frames. Check-Out Page (check_out.htm) has been designed to incorporate security features. It uses 128 bit SSL code over web browser to make secure web transactions involving credit card / debit card transactions. Verisign secured and Shopsafe logos are incorporated on check-out, home pages to specify the security levels maintained by the web site. Blinking and auto-refreshing text have been avoided. Templates have been used in DreamWeaver and CoralDraw for easy content management and consistency. Browser Safe colours: A1 JavaScript has been included to ensure that only the "browser-safe" colors (i.e., those which show up the same for all browsers and platforms) are used. This is important to avoid losing control over how colors are seen on different browsers and different platforms. It will not only affect website usability issues but also corporate branding issues to. Browser Safe colours are incorporated to make the customers feel the real and actual clours of the flowers they are ordering. Money back Guarantee Page is incorporated to encourage customers order flowers before seeing them. 6.3. Below is a brief list of the main site sections on the DFD prototype website: Homepage (home.htm) About Us (about.htm) Our Gardens, Range of flowers, Specialities, How we pick flowers, We care for your flowers, History, Business motto Customer services (Services.htm) The main services offered Shopping basket (Basket.htm) Check out & Payment(check_out.htm) Delivery tracking(track_your_order.htm) Important dates(imp_dates.htm) Star Sign flowers(SS_flowers.htm) Money back Guarantee(guarantee.htm) Language of flowers(language_of_flowers.htm) Say it with "Red Roses"(red_roses.htm) Choose your Flowers(pick_your_flowers.htm) Choose your Design from templates(templates.htm) Contact Us & Feedback (contact.htm, contact_confirm.htm) Guest book for visitors(guest.htm) An external link on the website DFD Gallery (gallery.htm, DFDgallery1.htm - DFDgallery50.htm) DFD Forum(forum.htm) An external link on the website Useful info & links (e.g. hyperlinks to information on seasonal flowers) Disclaimer, Copyright and Privacy statements (disclaimer.htm) Help (faq.htm) Email Newsletter (Newsletter.htm) to intimate the customers when their favourite flowers arrive. Latest Flowers & Designs (lates_designs.htm) Site Map (site_map.htm) 6.4. All pages. The following shall be made available on every page to promote consistency, branding & user friendliness: Back, Front button Help Contact Us Home Page Date & Time Customer's Login name (incase logged in) Shopping Basket Delivery Track down (for customers who ordered earlier) Check Out Total Value of shopped flowers Today's Special Substitute a different flower Site map Language of Flowers Latest Designs / patterns Corporate Logo & Colour Disclaimer, Copyright and Privacy statements Visited links will be highlighted 6.5. Customers Area: The website will contain areas to enable customers to: Customers Login Area. Shop for flowers online. Dynamic Track down of delivery of flowers ordered earlier. Shopping basket to show what all they shopped Check out page to pay online with credit cards/Debit cards, other payment options via secured transaction page. Select the flowers and design their own pattern from different templates of bouquets. Design their own bouquets and with different flowers, baskets, styles, colours to chose from. Reminder service for ordering flowers on important dates. Active opt in email newsletter (Newsletter.htm) subscription service Update their personal details e.g. address, name, reminders. Use a calendar to help them decide when and where the flowers are to be delivered. 6.6. Visitors Area: who are browsing for the first time to see what flowers are available to them: What DFD offers Useful hyperlinks to organisations who specialise in offering help in the same and/or different issues relating to homelessness. An online gallery composed of the homeless' artwork which can be viewed by everyone (work can be sent in by post or emailed). An online chat forum and guestbook for everyone including the homeless to share their experiences, on where they can find accommodation and to generally support each other. 7. Software used These following technologies were involved with administration and implementation: IIS Web Server (for running the system) My SQL database (for storing the information) PHP (for dynamically generating the necessary code) Photoshop (for graphic composition) Illustrator ( for graphic composition) Dream weaver (for html code) Secured online payments, order processing and tracking down delivery were also involved. 8. Conclusion/Future From this project it can demonstrated that this website is designed to deliver efficiency, cost saving and profitable solutions to increase the target audience. The company is be able to provide flowers and delivering service to customers by the creation of an internet facility and database configuration. It is also possible optimize the information and payment. Read More