For Assignment 3, I created an e-commerce site called “Kim’s Krave Beauty Skincare” which offers various skincare products (cleanser, moisturizer, treatment, sunscreen) as well as accessories and tools.
I am extremely proud of how my assigment turned out and I feel as though I accomplished everything that was required for this project. One of the first things that was required was that, as compared to Assignment 1 and 2, I needed three more pages of product for the user to select from. The next requirement was that I needed to somehow store a user’s shopping cart data as well as their user data for personalization. I was able to save the user’s shopping cart data of product quantities within a session. For the user’s information after they logged in or registered, I stored that information in a cookie. With all of this information stored in sessions or cookies, I was able to create a user state that was displayed on my pages displaying things such as the user’s identity or login status. Finally, I was able to send users an email with their invoice of their transaction.
Originally, I really wanted to incorporate the plus and minus buttons on my shopping cart to allow the user to use the buttons instead of having to only be able to type the new quantities they wanted, but I just didn’t have the time. I also wish I had changed the layout of my webpages by initially using a template for Assignment 1.
My biggest project risk was figuring out how to develop my shopping cart using sessions. It was a little confusing because I decided to use a microservice and a fetch to retrieve my data. I got a lot of help from Professor Port on this part and he was able to guide me to a simpler path of how to make my shopping cart function. Often times I made the task harder on myself by writing more complicated code, but with Professor Port’s help, I was able to create a basic shopping cart function.
My assessment of the overall quality of the system, on a percentage scale, I would give it within the 90s. I don’t believe that it is perfect or deserves a 100%, but I definitely think that I did a really good job on it with minor mistakes.
One thing that is definitely needed before this system can be placed into operation is adding more security for defense against hackers. I have the bare minimum for my webpages to protects users and my server from getting hacked into.
I am really proud about how much I have improved in recognizing problems in my code and also figuring out how to resolve those problems on my own. My problem solving skills with programming has definitely improved throughout the semester and especially for Assignment 3. I am also really proud about how much time and effort I spent into this project trying to figure out what exactly I needed to do, what I wanted to do, how to do it, and how to test it. I am the most proud about the fact that I have grown to truly understand what every aspect of my code does.
I wish I had more time on this project. I feel as though there were many things I wish I could have added, but I just didn’t have the time to do so. I also wish I chose a template at the beginning because I don’t really like the layout of my webpages.
I worked on this assignment by myself, so I would give myself a 100% contribution. I worked on all of Assignment 3’s requirements on my own, but whenever I needed help or got stuck at a certain part, I would go to Professor Port’s office hours and he was really helpful in assisting me with my problems.