My developer history. Ep 1 - My job at the car spare parts company (2013)

Brief

In 2013 I've joined my friend when he was approached to redesign and rebuild a webshop for a car spare parts vendor.
Their goal was to beat the competitors by providing the best UX, improve the database by importing the global database for car spare parts, improve security, add filtering options. Without us knowing it, we have used a Kanban board, so we were already Agile before it was even a thing. :)

Stack

Vanilla Php, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, MySql

Improving the database

When you are provided with the ultimate database (around 10GB) of all the car parts ever built, first thing you do is sanitize. Select the columns that are irrelevant for your use. If you still end up with millions of entries, you go further. You repeat this until you end up with a reasonable, but necessary amount of data. Next you plan the dump import. Consider your internet speed (2013), PC config and frequest random data checks for data loss.

Improve security

The other product that has been used had major Php injection issues, which we discovered, and implemented all available security solutions into the new build.

Filtering options

Products, like batteries, engine oils or tyres have been very hard to find for customers. We have implemented a simple filtering system for these, since we had all the information about the product in the database, products now could be found based on the make, type and year of the vehicle. (License plate search is a UK specific thing).

(The screenshots are from the latest version of the website)

Our days:

...and our kanban board