Lacoste Touch of Pink - Snowglobe Your Friends FaceBook App

Launched in November 2008

For this project I was the sole/lead front end developer and so was in charge of all front end development aspects of this application.

This project was particularly challenging as it involved having to work within the FaceBook API, and learn FaceBook Markup Language (FBML). FBML lacks comprehensive documentation and an established community to gain support from which made the development all the more difficult. The FaceBook API is also very restrictive due to security and privacy issues enforced by FaceBook, adding extra complexity to development.

The application itself allows registered users to upload photos of themselves into a virtual snowglobe complete with virtual snow. The snowglobe, complete with user uploaded photo, is then combined with a user inputted personal greeting message and the whole thing is then sent to the user's selected FaceBook friends.

Lacoste Love of Pink - Love Explosions FaceBook App

Launched in November 2008

This project ran concurrently with the development of the Lacoste Love of Pink FaceBook App and had me in an identical role as sole/lead front end developer.

This application was for the sister perfume of Lacoste Touch of Pink and so the application itself was slightly different.

In this application registered users can create their own custom 'Love Explosions', which are custom flash movies in reality, to send to all their friends, complete with a personalised explosion message.

This application was translated into 5 languages - English, French, Spanish, German and Russian. The Cyrillic script version was particularly difficult to develop!

National Grid - Reskinning Exercise

Launched in December 2008

This project was very different from the normal work that I am involved in as it did not involve the creation of a new website from scratch.

Instead the purpose of this exercise was to create a unified look and feel for all of National Grid's major online offerings.

This was an extremely difficult task as the websites involved were all based on differing backend systems and some of the codebase's for these sites were very outdated in comparison to present day web standards.

The sites that were included in this reskinning exercise were:

• National Grid's Corporate site
• National Grid's US Retail site
• National Grid's UK Retail site
• The former KeySpan Energy site - a recent corporate acquisition of National Grid

I was the lead Front End Developer for this exercise.

Initially my role involved technically assessing the 4 vastly different existing websites and advising LBi's design team on what kind of design changes would be feasible from a technical perspective.

The design team then created several reskinned page designs for each of the candidate web sites. For each of these reskinned pages I provided step by step instructions as to how best to modify the existing code base so that style changes would be reflected broadly across the entire website.

My code and accompanying documentation was then handed over to National Grid's in house developer teams for complete implementation across each of the candidate websites. During this period I acted in a consultancy role advising the development teams wherever necessary.

The final reskinned websites have been deemed a great success by National Grid, who are very happy with our work. Instead of owning 4 individual sites which had very little in on-brand similarity National Grid now own a family of sites that all have a similar on-brand look and feel.

Cheers Drive

Launched in July 2008

Cheers Drive is a small Bristol based company that specialises in rental of "Star Cars" - instantly recognisable movie and television cars that turn heads wherever they go.

This site features:

• 100% XHTML Strict validation.
• An accessible unobtrusive JavaScript image gallery acting as a progressive enhancement to the PHP based fallback.
• A CSS based main navigation menu that functions in all major browsers.

I was the sole designer and developer for this site and so am completely responsible for every aspect of this website.

British Gas - Generation Green

Launched in April 2008

This is British Gas's online offering for increasing environmental awareness amongst school children whilst helping support their schools.

This site features:

• 100% XHTML Strict validation - Remarkable considering it is an EpiServer content managed site.
• Accessible Flash Movie Integration
• Animated dropdown JavaScript main menu
• Advanced Google Maps and AJAX School Finder mash-up

The contribution that I am most proud of on this site is the advanced Google Maps functionality

Wyevale Garden Centres

Launched March 2008

Wyevale Garden Centres are a chain of famous garden centres based in the UK.

This site features:

• Google Maps API integration in the store details page.
• Accessible and unobtrusive JavaScript based tab-sets within the store details page.

I led the initial architecture set up and development for this site.

Hamleys Toy Store

Launched March 2008

Hamleys is the UK's most famous toy store. Now owned by Baugur I was part of the LBi team that revamped the Hamleys website to bring the site into the 21st century.

This site features:

• A complex curved Flash based top navigation with accessible fallback.
• Advanced 'png' format transparent elements, such as within the product details page shown in this screenshot, which work even under Internet Explorer 6.

Flying Flowers

Launched February 2008

Flying Flowers is an online flower delivery business.

This site features:

• Ajax based product add-ons functionality.
• Accessible CSS based rollover functionality in the main navigation menu.

USC

Launched February 2008

USC is a famous brand orientated high street fashion retailer, which has a target audience of 15 to 40 year olds.

This site features:

• An animated opacity fade in/out site header that works in all major browsers.
• Accessible and unobtrusive integration of Flash and JavaScript elements.

House of Fraser

Launched September 2007

The House of Fraser website was one of 5 websites created as part of a project for the Icelandic equity firm Baugur. Each website was built on a similar 'core' of 'front end' and 'back end' code.

During this project I worked as a 'front end' interface developer for LBi in partnership with Demandware eCommerce systems and T-Systems, (a division of T-Mobile), who were in charge of developing and implementing the 'back end' systems.

This site features:

• An accessible animated AJAX drop down shopping basket.
• Integration of the Adobe Scene7 API in the product details page to give advanced zooming and panning functionality when viewing a product.
• Integration of Google Maps API in the store details page.
• eCommera Demandware e-commerce platform (server-side) integration.