• Beautiful design
• Ajax shopping cart
• Standards compliant XHTML and CSS
• Totally bespoke content management system
• E-commerce solution
• Seamless integration into Protx payment gateway

In Detail – The key criteria for the website and how we met them:

• It had to look fantastic, reflecting Fleurs’ artistic and high-class brand. We made use of great photography – mainly high-quality close up shots of their flowers. We gave a lot of room for the photographs to shine – something florist sites often miss out on. The site also made great use of white space.
• It had to be simple to update for the less computer literate people to use. We wrote a content management system (CMS) from the ground up specifically tailored for Fleurs. The CMS contains no unneeded areas, or ‘fat’, meaning there is minimal room for confusion and error. We provided all the training needed (half a day) to make sure the Fleurs staff were comfortable using the CMS.
  
• Whilst maintaining simplicity the system must be complete – Fleurs have to keep records of all transactions and also a one page, easily decipherable printout must be produced for each order for the rdiver to deliver flowers. When an order is placed an official receipt is sent to both the customer and to Fleurs. Additionally, another email is sent – this email is specifically formatted and styled to ensure all the information will printout onto one page. The information hierarchy in this emailed printout has to be very clear – ensuring the driver knows where and to whom s/he is delivering the flowers to.
  
• Whilst looking great, the site must also be extremely functional – allowing customers to buy flowers with ease and without confusion. Customers can add items into their shopping cart easily as all pages stick closely to a conventional information hierarchy for e-commerce sites. They are also consistent in layout. Additionally they can also edit item amounts and delete items without the page reloading (which could cause confusion) through Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX).
  
• The site must meet web standards. We made sure that our markup and styling (XHTML and CSS) was fully standards compliant, adopting modern techniques such as CSS image-replacement where appropriate. Making sure the site meets standards will allow both people with visual impairment who use screen reader technology to use the site effectively, and to better allow search engines such as Google to index pages.