Website for my LBS
 

Hello,

I'm going to design a somewhat fancy website for my LBS. I'm going to keep the site pretty simple with a few eye candies. They said most of their customers only go to their website to look for their hours. So I was thinking of having a clean picture of their logo into the middle, with their hours of operation right underneath.

Then I was going to have their products, services, about us as fancy looking buttons lined up underneath.

ALso, inside the product page, I was thinking of adding the models of the bikes they have in stock, keep all the specifications and their price inside a database, and have the products page generated dynamically.

What do you guys think about this design? Also, if you have a link to your LBS, it would be good for me to get a good idea of what I need to do.

Thanks

Ming

nav bars. i like nav bars running down the left side.

Sounds good. Keep the layout simple...avoid Flash please! My two local shops (on both ends of the country, haha):

http://www.pedalnspoke.com
http://www.velopro.com

They're both pretty elaborate, in my opinion excessively so. I prefer Pedal-N-Spoke's site by far.

That idea is only for the initial index page. The navigation bars will be on the left side as usual.

I'm not sure if I want to do a drop down navigation menu though.....

I personally do not like flash movies because they can be intrusive and I am not getting paid for this website. The database programming will already take too much time, so I have to set a limit somewhere.

Keep it simple and make it easy for them to find what the viewer is looking for. I hate searching websites for certain things.

Maybe a search feature. Also if you could pictures of the bikes to go along with descriptions. :)

For the bike page, I was going to show a small picture of the bike, along with the name (clickable) and price beside the small picture. If the user clicks on the picture, or the name of the bike, the website will go to a more detailed description page, kinda like how the manufacturer has it. The problem is, this approache takes quite a bit of upkeep (database), and the owners do not seem want to do it that way.

I am going to make sure I keep things really simple, and I was just wondering how fancy I need to make it :)

After this, I should get stuff at cost, which should help with my already shallow pockets :D

Ming

http://cottonwoodcycles.com/

That's my bike shop's site... I am in no way affiliated with them, other than being a customer, and am not responsible for any damage to your retinas you may encounter from viewing those horribly tacky colors. :P


Are they going to give you a discount on stuff in the future? If it's a medium-to-large store, with a lot of bikes, do you really want to take on the task of a database for nothing?

They're fairly big in this area. They carry over 100 bikes, I am quite certain. I'm a software engineering student, and I've done quite a bit of database programming at my summer job. My intention is to build them a site that will dynamically generate the content from a database, and a database management tool. I dont think I can stand entering all the labourous data even if I was getting paid for it :)

Thanks for the site links. Keep them coming!!

I will post the template online for critics when I have a working prototype :)

Ming

PS...That's some pretty bad colour choices on that website :) hehehe

Just a few things that get on my nerves on most websites these days. Make sure your page validates as xhtml 1.0 so that it will work on nearly any device in nearly any browser. Frames are a real pain and make google indexing not work as well as intended. Your best bet for the database related stuff would be php/mysql as both are free and simple, for the most part. If you're in need of a good host on the cheap, there are plenty of options. The host I use is 1and1 http://1and1.com and they have a package for $10 a month that gives you 3 free domains, 2gb storage, 50gb transfer, 5 FTP and 500 email accounts with 1GB each.

Thanks for the advice. I will use php/mysql combo because I have some scripts written in that combo already. I'm a fan of tables, and simple javascripting. There is no need for <DIV>s, or any sort of frames for the design I have in my head. The onlything is the LBS's colour is green. It is sort of a diffcult colour to blend into most designs.

I will speak to them about their host, but personally, I get my hosting for free. I used to work at probably the biggest hosting company in Canada this summer.... :D

Ming

you can do just fine using css and occasionally some tables (though even that can be avoided). I agree that green is a really rough color to try to blend into any design. The way I see it, design the site for the lowest common denominator.. hell, make it work on html-capable wireless devices (eg. the treo 600, which I own) and it will work fine on everything else. Even though the ones that will use such a device will be in the minority, they're generally the ones that are most appreciative of a well-designed site. I know in my case, it's great to be able to browse a website while I'm out price shopping... or need directions or a phone number. :) I wish my LBS would actually update their website for a change. It's barren and uninformative. http://www.bikezoo.com/ if you want to see what I mean. :p

I'll try to design the website mobile friendly. Afterwards, I'll look at it on my friend's blackberry and see how it looks. I maybe getting a job with RIM (the company that makes the blackberry) this summer :D

I would like to place one of the pictures of the store, or a special deal of the week, basically a randomly selected picture onto the front page to attract the users' attention. However, it seems very difficult to try to fit this into my design. Do you have any good ideas???

Thanks

Ming

PS...Recap on the front page:

So far, I'm thinking of having their logo in the middle of the page, followed by their hours of operation, with 3 fancy looking buttons lined up underneath.

My most recent ex-LBS has a website, they say they never look at their customer contacts.

Lol...thanks for the advice!!! I dont plan to put a web contact page in. THat's why the LBS has a phone and fax # right?? ;)

what is the webadress

make it compatable with ALL BROWSERS (firefox)

A few more examples to look at

www.dukesonqueen.com
www.trailblazercycles.com
www.cycle-solutions.com

All of them have their unique aspects to it. I personally like dukesonqueen.com the best.

Man am I happy I only design for intranets where I control the browser being used. Best move I ever made. I hate trying to work with other browsers now, originally I was a w3 stickler...

Sounds like the design tips you got are good. KISS basically. Green won't be bad to work with, just find a pallette to use and work darker if the colour is light. Should be fine.

Php/mysql is a killer combo. I still prefer it over others I am learning now or have learned recently.

here are some:
http://www.jtcycles.com.au/ <---- better design
http://www.bicycleexpress.com.au/

It will be designed for firefox :D and I'll worry about the bugs in IE later

Ming

i use firefox aswell it is really good

I would worry about the majority. I doubt browser distribution has changed much since I was a public website designer. That would likely piss off a lot of patrons of the company you are making the site for.

US Stats nov 1st 2004
IE 92.9% (drop of 2.6%)
Firefox 3% (picked up almost all of ie's dropoffs)
Netscape and others 6%

By avoiting IE you are isolating a large part of the US market.

All browsers..haha thats kind of funny...I assume you mean mozilla, firefox and IE (5 and up)...it would be soooo annoying to try and make things compatible with older browsers (more so than IE etc) Today is easy money web design, it has come a long way, to try and code for some older ones still in use would be interesting.

OK...I had some time to make the template today... Looking for suggestions :)

http://ming.hostopia.com/pieriks/