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How did the project start?
Tradingeye started officially in 2006, entering what was at the time an extremely saturated market We found there was a distinct lack of affordable shopping cart software packages available to the average business owner. We also found that not one of these packages paid any regard to modern web standards and best practices in their design. Tradingeye was thus born, with the intention of being the most accessible, standard-compliant and SEO-friendly shopping cart base available to date. Since it's inception three years ago the software has gone from strength to strength, and now version 6 of the software is just around the corner, boasting many new features and a completely reworked admin panel and front-end.
Tradingeye offers many great features straight out of the box:
• Excellent Search Engine rankings and fast-loading pages due to the use of valid, semantic XHTML
• Completely separated design (CSS) markup (templates) and code (PHP)
• Completely UK DDA & US Section 508 compliant
• Intuitive admin panel and streamlined shopping process
• No software to install - access the shop admin from your web browser
• So easy to reskin to suit any style or layout
We've really tried to make this software as friendly as possible for all who use it - designers, developers, resellers and of course, those who will be actually buying from it. We think we've done a pretty good job so far, but there's always room for more features and more refinement.
What options did you consider?
We considered a hosted solution for the software, as well as several 'flavours' of Tradingeye, such as Regular & Professional. These were quickly shot down however, as we wanted our users to have complete control over how and where their software is hosted. We also felt that it was important to have all features of the software available to everyone, allowing users to 'turn on' additional features as their shop requires them. This resulted in a much more powerful 'one-for-all' product while at the same time cutting down our in-house design and development time.
What help and expertise did you receive?
We realised that our software relies heavily on the community of users that work with it, so we've really listened to as much feedback as possible regarding what features and functions users would like to see built into Tradingeye. The guys on our forums (over 1,400 members!), the feedback taken via our support centre and the expertise of many industry experts has all been taken into account in the development of Tradingeye.
We received help and expertise from many leading industry experts such as Jim Byrne (founder of the Guild of Accessible Web Designers) and Andy Clark (owner of Stuff and Nonsense, a published author and international web design speaker).
Jim Byrne, founder of the Guild of Accessible Web Designers, said: "Dpivision are to be applauded for demonstrating that an e-commerce website can look great and be accessible. They have clearly put a lot of work and effort into trying to ensure potential customers are not locked out from the online shopping experience - which is a lesson for other vendors in the market."
Andy Clark from Stuff and Nonsense commented: "Finally designers and developers have what they want: a standards-based, highly accessible and professional ecommerce solution that has fewer limitations than anything we have seen so far. Tradingeye came to my attention again after being highly recommended by a number of my friends and colleagues. The flexibility of its templates, as well as the developers' keenness to work with the standards community to continue to improve them, impressed me. Added to this the sheer depth of their product and its ability to already integrate with Sage and Act!, both popular business packages, peaked my interest. In all my dealings with them I have been so pleased at the attitude and responsiveness of the team at dpvision, the company behind Tradingeye, that I will be helping them in the future; as I know will be a number of my accessibility specialist colleagues, to make Tradingeye's markup even more flexible and accessible."
Feedback such as this really spurs us on - knowing that the 'big names' in web design, development and accessibility are backing our product really makes us want to spread the word on our software. And we will continue listen to and act up such feedback to ensure we continue leading the way in accessible, modern e-commerce.
Did you face and challenges or learn any lessons?
First and foremost, the software had to be as user-friendly as possible, without holding back on features. We had Tradingeye hands-on usability tested in-house as well as by the guys at Codeworks and the University of Sunderland. Assistive software testing was done using applications such as JAWS, one of the most popular screen reader solutions available. This testing has been constant and thorough to ensure the software excels in these areas. But being a small team here in Newcastle, progress has been a little slower than we'd have like. We only have limited resources (and are a bunch of perfectionists) so we can only do so much!
What are the outcomes and how has it improved your business?
Tradingeye has sold over 4000 licenses worldwide already, and we have an ever growing community with over 7,500 posts on our forum in the last 12 months alone. We've had to expand the team to manage the increase in client work and bespoke development work, and the popularity of Tradingeye has enabled us to fund other projects such as CannyBill - the online invoicing and web hosting solution for web designers (www.cannybill.com).
What are your plans for the future?
Uptake of Tradingeye really has been beyond our initial expectations; we believe we're really upping the ante in terms of modern e-commerce, and we look forward to the next version and new features it will bring.
