INTE2047 Assignment 2 - Milestone 3: Final Website

The final website is the culmination of your previous milestones. It is the final hosted website that your customers can
access online.

Exactly what the website will contain will depend on what the online business is. You should have been discussing this with your tutor throughout the semester. The following sections provide a description of sections and features that could be included in your website. You must implement all the essential sections.

Website Template

As with Milestone 2, you may use a website template but not a website builder for Milestone 3. For more details, refer to the "Website Template" section of Assignment 2 - Milestone 2.

Web Pages

Home Page

Design a home page that incorporates all the aspects of good home page design. This component will be marked according to the extent to which you have implemented current design principles.

Your home page should validate as correct HTML5, depending on which version you decide to use. (Use an online validation site for this.)

It should have interesting content that is relevant and appropriate for your business, is appealing and is attention- grabbing so that visitors will want to explore more of the site.

Content

Your site should include HTML and CSS. You may include JavaScript, PHP, other scripting languages, and technolo- gies as your team decides.

You should study other sites in this niche to determine pages that are usually included in any e-business site and then make sure that you have created these for your site.

Your website needs to provide relevant information about your business; it should be informative so that visitors will want to bookmark your site to return to it often.

All content must be created or written by members of the team. You should not cut and paste from other websites.

What will make your site different? What information will you need to provide visitors? What makes your site so useful that visitors will want to return frequently?

This requirement will be assessed according to how many essential pages you have included and according to the value of the content that you have written on each of these pages. All material on the site must be free of copyright.

Graphics

All graphics need to be created by members of the team or be entirely free of copyright and attributed if downloaded from elsewhere.

Your logo needs to be one that you have created and bear no resemblance to any existing company logo.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Conduct some basic research about search engine optimisation (SEO) and apply it to optimise each of your pages. This means that each of your pages should have the correct titles (title tags), description (metatags), correct number of H1 headings, correct number of H2 headings and appropriate use of targeted keywords on the page.

Functionality

Your site needs to provide the following functionality at a minimum.

1. Your site will need to provide a way for customers to order products, services, or anything else you may offer.
2. Your site should include a catalogue of products (i.e., a photo gallery) or portfolio (e.g., if your business is a service, a photo gallery of completed work). Where appropriate, these photos may include user-submitted photos, but they must be vetted.
3. The site needs to provide a shopping cart for purchases to be made. The shopping cart must be visible from all pages and located at the top of your site.
4. When a customer checks out the shopping cart, a summary and thank you page should be provided and the shopping cart should be cleared.
5. There should be a validated form for getting a customer’s name and their email address when they register to receive a newsletter. This part should be visible on the home page.
6. Once you have created your web site, include a login that prevents outsiders from accessing your site. The login should be before the home page is loaded. (This is only because you may have created a student website that may have a very realistic shopping cart. Normally, you would not block an entire site this way in a real-world situation. Use inte and 2047 as the username and password for the login). Refer to Tutorial Task 8.6 - PHP Login for more details.

Navigation

Design an appropriate navigation system. Decide on left or right and/or top navigation. There are always links included in the footer section as well.

Your navigation system will be assessed according to the extent to which you have implemented current design principles.

Advanced Features

Decide on extra features that offer a more functional site (above and beyond just content pages). For example, you might include a site search. There are many different features that could be added. You should study other sites as well to find other features that are desirable.

You will be assessed on the degree to which your additional features add to the functionality of the site and its viability as a business.

To be counted and assessed, each of these features must be listed in your Site Map under the heading “Advanced Features”. They should be clickable links that load the page that contains the advanced feature. No marks will be awarded for the advanced features if links are not provided from the site map to access them.

Extra credit will be given to innovative designs, designs that “stand out from the crowd”.

Deliverables

You will need to present your website to your class and tutor. Presentation slides are not necessary; simply demonstrate your website itself. If you do not present your website to your class and tutor, you will receive no marks for the Milestone.

You will also have to complete a peer evaluation of your team members for this milestone. For more details about this, refer to the Tutorial Task 5.2 – CATME: Account Creation and Rater Calibration Exercise. You will receive an email instructing you when to complete the peer evaluation.

Submit the following to Canvas by the milestone due date:

1. Website: All the files for your website.
2. Meeting Logs: Any form of communication between team members about the project as evidence of participation by team members. These can be in a variety of formats, including text transcripts or audio files (e.g., if you audio recorded meetings).
3. Previous Milestone Submissions: All your previous milestone submissions (refer to the Assignment Submissions section of the Questions page for details).

Advice

Developing a website for an online business is a complex and time consuming endeavour. It is also an iterative process in which you develop the website incrementally and get feedback on each new development. The course has been structured such that you get feedback from your classmates and tutor during each presentation. You should start these assignments, especially the website development, as early as possible. You should consult your tutor throughout the development of this project to gain feedback along the way.