Case Studies - oldest to most recent

Websites and other projects developed and/or maintained by Chris Hope

I have worked on many web projects since 1996, as part of Webenz from 1997 to 2003 and then as an independent contract programmer since that time. I would estimate that I have worked on around 200 web sites in some capacity; at some stage I'm going to sit down and try to compile a list of every site I have worked on to see if I can figure this number out. This section details some of the projects I have worked on.

Post sort order: Post Date (Newest First) | Post Date (Oldest First) | Alphabetical | Date Updated

Minerva Mail

Posted December 1st, 2003 in Case Studies (Updated March 19th, 2007)

Minerva Mail is a web based email marketing broadcasting solution developed to offer customised email marketing solutions to businesses. It was developed by me, Chris Hope, while at Webenz using PHP and MySQL.

Posted December 2nd, 2003 in Case Studies (Updated March 19th, 2007)

The e3 Commerce System is an easy to use and flexible ecommerce solution programmed using PHP and MySQL developed by me, Chris Hope, while working at Webenz.

Posted December 2nd, 2003 in Case Studies (Updated December 4th, 2008)

The Personlised Plates website is maintained by me, Chris Hope, and was developed using PHP and MySQL. It is updated on a daily basis with data from the Personalised Plates Microsoft SQL Server database.

Posted January 5th, 2004 in Case Studies (Updated February 24th, 2004)

The Flaxmill Bay website advertises a beachfront property development in Coromandel, New Zealand. It was designed by Iley Hewlet and assembled by me, Chris Hope, using XHTML and CSS layout.

Posted February 13th, 2004 in Case Studies (Updated February 24th, 2004)

Country Best is an ecommerce shopping cart website in New Zealand which sells designer handmade baby clothing. It was designed by Nicola Wright and the shopping cart functions developed by me, Chris Hope, using PHP and MySQL.

Posted June 25th, 2004 in Case Studies (Updated June 22nd, 2008)

Outdoor Action is a New Zealand based retailer of outdoor items. Their ecommerce website was created using the open source osCommerce system which uses PHP and MySQL. The implementation of osCommerce was customised considerably to apply a nice design created by Nicola Wright.

Posted June 25th, 2004 in Case Studies

Print Counsel is an Auckland, New Zealand based print company. Their website is an information site advertising who they are and the services offered. There is an online ordering section which allows existing customers to login and place orders.

Posted July 16th, 2004 in Case Studies (Updated August 10th, 2004)

Te Arai Olive Estate is a premium olive oil producer in Mangawhai, on the east coast of Northland, New Zealand. They produce olives and olive oil; Motutira is their premium extra virgin olive oil and can be ordered online using their online ordering page.

Posted March 2nd, 2008 in Case Studies

Earlier this week I launched a "reskinned" version of my Linux CD Mall website. The functionality is largely the same, but the navigation has been moved and improved and I prefer the new layout a lot more to how it was previously. This post contains screenshots and some information about the changes.

Posted April 22nd, 2008 in Case Studies

I went to the Hitwise New Zealand Online Performance Awards on Wednesday last week along with Mike James from Healthy Online. We knew ahead of time that we were going to win an award, but I was surprised when they were reading out the awards that another site I work with, Personalised Plates, also won an award.

Posted June 22nd, 2008 in Case Studies

The Cyetec Smart Alarms website advertises their smart alarm products which feature wireless video and audio communication to your mobile phone. The design for the website was provided to me as a Photoshop file, which I then turned into an HTML/CSS template and did the coding using the Zend Framework (PHP) with MySQL as the database backend.

Posted July 12th, 2008 in Case Studies (Updated August 7th, 2008)

After 3 months of on and off work on the new Just Kids website we'll finally be ready to launch it next week. I decided this would be a good opportunity to have a look at the existing website and some of the usability issues with it which we have overcome with the new version of the website.

Just Kids (or JK) is a New Zealand based retail chain of kids clothing stores for children with stores in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, and an online presence with both New Zealand and Australian ecommerce stores.

Posted August 7th, 2008 in Case Studies

After a considerable amount of work we finally re-launched the JK Kids Gear website (Australian version here) on August 5th 2008. The design was by Ogilvy Metro and proved to be a challenge to implement but the end result looks great and we've had plenty of compliments about it already.

Posted October 2nd, 2008 in Case Studies

After a considerable amount of work we finally launched the product zoom function on the JK Kids website yesterday. This allows the user to mouse over the thumbnail image of a product and view a zoomed in image next to it. This post looks at the function along with some screenshots.

Posted October 4th, 2008 in Case Studies

I have a website directory for children's oriented websites in New Zealand at www.kidzstuff.co.nz which I set up 18 months ago after purchasing the expired domain which had some decent inbound links. This post has a brief overview of the site and the design changes I made a couple of days ago.

Posted December 4th, 2008 in Case Studies

We launched what is effectively the 4th version of the Personalised Plates website yesterday with a slightly different flow for people searching for plates, and more emphasis on the different plate styles available.

Posted December 9th, 2008 in Case Studies

We launched a new set of products on the Personalised Plates website yesterday: Zodiac Star Sign plates so you can have your own star sign on your car plate along with the legend of your choice.

Posted December 23rd, 2008 in Case Studies

On Thursday last week I finally launched my new Electric Bookmarks blog to complement this one, on which I post useful links and news along with a little blurb about each.

Posted April 24th, 2009 in Case Studies

I'm pleased to announce that I've finally relaunched my kidzstuff.co.nz website directory and blog for websites in New Zealand relating to children and their families.

Posted August 26th, 2009 in Case Studies

My latest released project is Backup My Web, an automatic website and database backup service which backs up your website on a daily, weekly or monthly basis; a copy of your website is then sent to you on CD or DVD each week or month.

Posted September 4th, 2009 in Case Studies and Javascript

I've reskinned the Kidzstuff website again (this is the 4th different design I've used now) and am much happier with the result this time. (A screenshot of the version 3 design can be seen here and the versions 1 and 2 here). This new design utilises the jQuery Superfish Menus plug-in which is the main purpose of this post.

Posted October 4th, 2009 in Case Studies

At 2am this morning we finally launched version 2 of the healthy.co.nz website. This has been a long work in the making and replaces the old website which was initially created back in 1998 using the Intershop system and later moved to the e3 system I created at Webenz.

Posted February 14th, 2010 in Case Studies and SilverStripe

I put my first SilverStripe website online a couple of nights ago; it's my parents' three page website with an introduction to their patchwork fabric website, contact details and a list of suppliers.

Posted March 26th, 2010 in Case Studies and SilverStripe

I've just completed some changes to the Alpha Omega Associates private detective agency website which included switching it over to SilverStripe and making a number of layout and content changes so thought I'd share it here.

Posted April 14th, 2010 in Case Studies and SilverStripe

It's still very much a work in progress but we pushed motorhomeroadtrip.com live yesterday. It uses SilverStripe as the framework/CMS and we're currently loading content into it and finishing everything off.

Posted April 18th, 2010 in Case Studies and SilverStripe

I finally pushed my New Zealand Running Calendar website live this morning directly before going off to run the Run Auckland 10K on the Te Atatu Peninsula (which I ran in 43:31). As with the Motor Home Road Trip website which we pushed live earlier this week there's still a lot of content to be added and once I have all the content loaded I'll be adding some more functionality.