RAD designs, LLC

When Cobalt approached us with this project we were excited for a number of reasons. First, we were excited about having the opportunity to design the interface for a web application, and focus on usability and the user experience. Second, we knew it would be a fun challenge from a development perspective, but one that would be rewarding when it was completed.

The Website Gallery's purpose is to allow Cobalt clients, who are auto dealerships, to use the application to view all available designs, color options and themes and select a combination that suits them. Once this is completed, they will submit the option combination they have selected which will send them to an order form and allow for instant purchasing of the site. NOTE: The order processing portion of the project is not functional yet - Cobalt will be launching this feature at a later date.

The design portion of the project seemed pretty simple, keep things clean and organized, allow for scalability in options, and create some contrast between the menu bars and the design comps that are displayed. The challenging part for the design and development of the interface itself was trying to create an interface that would work in a modal window, and still allow for maximum functionality. We opted for a jQuery package called FancyBox and made some minor customizations to make it do exactly what we needed.

We contracted eSolutions Web Services to help out with the heavy lifting for the jQuery development. They built the framework that pulls the available options and images from an external XML file, as well as all the logic required to run the app. The app is built 100% on the jQuery framework, and all data is provided from an external XML file that can be updated on the fly by the Cobalt staff and updates will be deployed to the app immediately.