Tag Archives: Web design

The e-commerce platform

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After some serious research and some good recommendations from friends and colleagues, thanks for that, I ended up selecting oscommerce as platform for blacknwhite.se (closed).

A major reason for using oscommerce is that it’s the platform for blacknwhite.dk (closed) and looking through the check list from the last post:

  • User friendly front end and back end – prefer to see most of the information on one page instead of many, like tabs. Check
  • Newsletter subscribe/unsubscribe – WYSIWYG newsletter designer, overview of subscribers Check
  • Swedish and Danish language pack Check
  • Swedish and Danish currency Check
  • Payment gateway to Swedish to hosts like wannafind, payer (se), epay, payson etc. On the To Do list
  • Easy to design in CSS files, template files or HTML files Easy? but possible
  • Easy to create extra information pages with WYSIWYG editing Check
  • Product description with WYSIWYG editor Check
  • Easy cross sell feature Check
  • Free templates for download and easy installation Haven’t investigated this yet
  • More than one image on the description Check
  • Lightbox display of images – fast, neat and editable Lightbox installed but only working on some pages
  • Who’s online feature – real time view of who is visiting, are they registered customer, what they buy, where they come from etc. Check
  • For the future a Live help feature There is possibility for this

The oscommerce is maybe the e-commerce platform that started it all. Now days there are a few different versions built on oscommerce:

Color Scheme Designer

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Wednesdays I attend a class, Interface design and Digital Estetics, where I learn about different aspects on web design. Thought it was about time to get a proper education in this area 😉

At one of this classes we were introduced to Color Scheme Designer. It’s a cool and useful tool that helps you find a matching color scheme for your web site. Very easy to use and lots of adjustments, try it…

Color Scheme Designer

The reason we take the class:

To the blind all is sudden

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Sunday 1 of advent Swedish cities have “skyltsöndag“. This is to get the Christmas feeling starting. The shops are open and display Christmas decorations in the windows. Some serve “glögg och pepparkakor” (mould wine and ginger bread).  According to wikipedia the first skyltsöndag was in Stockholm 1953.

Blacknwhite.dk had together with Shiva Tea House also opened and I served glögg and “æbleskiver” from 12.00-18.00. Æbleskiver is a Danish tradition/delicates and are mostly enjoyed at Christmas time served with icing sugar and jam.  Translated to English æbleskiver is apple slices but these days there is no sign of apples in it. It’s a small ball made of a sort of pancake dough. In the old days (1700) it was slices of apples fried in flour and butter.

Among all of the visitor there was a very nice, happy and friendly blind couple. They were born blind and could only distinguish between light and dark. I served them æbleskiver and glögg and tried to explain what it was. The challenge was when they asked what kind of shop blacknwhite.dk is – what kind of interior decoration is it? It was really a big challenge because how to describe a pink drawer, grand-pa watches, silver glossy tin cans, multi coloured patch work blankets etc. to someone  who always been blind?

We also had a talk about the internet. Even if they were blind they surfed the internet. Some blind people use “read back” that read the content on the page. This couple used a Braille pad where they read the content on the page with their fingertips, incredible. This made me think about the importance of web accessibility. Just think about a small detail as a phone number written 12345678 which is twelve million three-hundred and forty-five thousand six-hundred and seventy-eight instead of 12 34 56 78  – twelve thirty-four fifty-six seventy-eight…