The Objective
This project was an assignment from my second semester in the New Media Production & Design program at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. The objective of this assignment was to create and implement a database using PHP and MySQL. The e-commerce website is not required to be functional in terms of transferring and processing money, but it needs to be able to list product information from a database as well as use cookies and sessions to create a functional online shopping cart.
The Process
For this project, a fictional business was required to be created. I developed my fictional business and logo before anything else. I planned out my business in detail and determined the products I would need to create. My next step was producing the content needed for the website: body copy, images, and graphics. My fictional business was a furniture store and my products included a variety of furniture and home décor. I had the option of using real furniture as my products and taking photos of furniture I own. I did not take this route and instead, I created my own furniture digitally using Adobe Illustrator. Although it was more time consuming to draw and create graphic content through Adobe Illustrator, I was very happy with the results.
After completing the content for the website, I started the web development process. The web development process included creating and implementing a database to list my products, write the PHP code required to store products in the shopping cart, design the website, and make the website responsive. As a requirement of my assignment, I also needed to include a sorting feature that allowed users to sort through the products available on my website. This was the part I had the most trouble with, but I successfully integrated this feature on my website. The feature allows users to sort through products alphabetically, by price, and by the date the product was added. Users can also filter the products by categories such as tables, chairs, and textiles.
This project was incredibly fun and challenging, and I was able to develop new skills as well as strengthen existing ones. I received great feedback from my instructors on the design of my website.
