14.1 Final web design

The structure is in place for the Taste the World website. It looks good, and incorporates room to grow. As products are added to the inventory they can be added to the website easily. The next step, when my aunt is ready, is to incorporate ecommerce into the site. Right now it features products and information, but you can't buy directly from the website. I am waiting for Anne to set up an account, however, in order to proceed with that phase of the project. I told her that I think PayPal will be the best route in this case.

Check out the website here:
www.tastetheworldonline.com

In my next few posts I will talk about some of the design particulars. It bears noting here that I learned a tremendous amount through the production of this site, however I feel that a class in coding is the next step. I can certainly hand-code something simple, but when it comes to unearthing pervasive problems my success rate has been somewhat lower. I need to rectify this in order to really move forward with my designs. Tutorials have been helpful, but a class will really bring things together for me. I might have to push that off to the summer though. The timing between break and the spring semester just won't work, and the upcoming USF semester is going to be packed. Meanwhile, I will keep tweaking the site and posting about design.

And finally, lessons learned:

• Keep it simple! Not boring, but definitely streamlined and clutter-free.
• Real world design sometimes requires workarounds. 
• Getting a better grasp on the particulars of CSS and XHTML will be a necessary addition to my skillset.
• Sometimes if it can't be figured out, cut your losses and rebuild! I "learn" this one over and over...