Silver Group

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  • Deliverable A
  • Deliverable B
  • Deliverable C
  • Web Site Analysis
  • Deliverable D
  • Deliverable E
  • Deliverable F
  • Deliverable G

    • Project Description

    The primary goal of our website is to attract car sellers so they post their listing on our site.  The secondary goal is to attract people looking for cars so they browse the cars listed on our site (and eventually purchase one that is listed there).  The buyers posting cars on our site will generate revenue because we will charge to list cars on our site.  The car buyers will help us generate ad revenue because we will sell ad space on our website.

    The primary goals of the clients will be to list cars for sale or find cars that they would like to purchase.  Both buyers and sellers would like to be able to perform their tasks from the comfort of a home or office, and get exposure to a large group (either sellers or buyers).  The transactions will occur outside of the website, so in the end, the goal is really to connect with a person that agrees to the price you think is fair for the car.

    The primary audience for our website will be people that would like to buy a car, but only have moderate knowledge of the car market and people that are serious about selling their car, but don't sell cars very often.  These people make up our target audience because they benefit the most from a website that does most of the hard work for them.  The secondary audience consists of people that are curious about purchasing a car, but have little intent to purchase one and people that sell cars often.  People that browse cars but don't intent to buy don't provide much value to sellers, but they can help increase our website's popularity and increase ad revenue.  People that sell cars often tend to require bulk discounts, so they run the risk of hurting our profit margin.

    The top three messages our website will convey are the ease of use, free registration and browsing, and a level of protection for buyers.  Our site will employ best practices in interface design, so users, who are not tech-savvy, can easily find cars or post one for sale.  Browsing the cars listed on our website is free, and so are tools like the email alert that tells a buyer when a car they are searching for has been found.  Sellers also have the option of hiding their contact information so that they don't have to post things like phone number and email online.  This helps protect sellers from unsolicited emails.

    Content

    Our website's main feature will be the ability to search for cars.  Will give users options to do broad searches or more focused searches to find a specific car.  This will allow us to add an easy search on the front page, and also a more comprehensive search that includes things like keywords, cost, and body type.  This search system will also be tied in with email alerts.  Buyers can save a search and get an automatic alert from the website when a match has been found.  This serves as a way to make searching easier for buyers and is also a way to make our website more sticky.

    To help a buyer make an informed decision we will also allow sellers to upload images and attach related videos.  The images give the buyer a chance to get a detailed look at the car without having to travel to where the car is located.  The video option enhances this even more by allowing a seller to get a realistic view of the car that is similar to the walk around they would give a car in person.  The related video also has the option of letting a seller attach an video review of their car, which can help give an expert's perspective on the car.

    Users will start at the home page and see a navigation bar that clearly lists out the sections of the website.  This navigation bar will be present on all pages to give a consistent feel and aid navigation.  The home page will also contain a quick search as well as recently added cars and announcements.  The search section of the site will contain an expanded search that lets a user choose from many attributes like body style and options on the car.  The user login section will be where buyers and sellers can make changes to their contact information and settings and do things like post vehicles, watch progress on postings, and adjust search options.

    The car detail page is probably the most important page on our site because it shows all of the information on a car that is for sale.  The car detail page will contain info on the car, contact information for the seller, images (and possibly video) of the car, as well as relevant advertisements.  The search results page will contain a listing of matched, a thumbnail images of the cars, and basic details like year, make, model, and price.  The search results page will be informative enough so users will get a good idea of which cars they are interested in even before moving on to the detail page.  Our site will also contain a sitemap, an about page, and page explaining our terms of service.

    Target Demographics

    The target audience for our website will be individuals selling a car, auto dealerships, and individuals that are interested in purchasing a car for personal use.  The car buyers we are targeting are not locked into any particular group because our site will have the features necessary to service a wide range of buyers.  We consider both buyers and sellers important, but initially, our focus will lean more on attracting sellers since they will be adding the majority of the content on the site (in the form of car listings).   For age groups, our focus will just be people aged 18 and up.  Younger people are usually under the driving age, unable to afford a vehicle, or have an adult perform the search for the car that they actually get.

    Sensorial Design

    Adding images to a car listing will be the most important tool integration for car listings.  The car detail page will contain a slideshow the car images that the seller has uploaded.  These images will also be leveraged in other places.  A primary image will be set by the user and that image will be used to help promoted the listing in two main places.  The first will be on the search results page, where a thumbnail image of the car will be displayed next to the brief description of the car.  The second place will be on the recently added cars display that will be on the home page.

    Sellers will also be able to post relevant videos from online video services.  This will come in most useful when the seller wants to give a quick 360 view of the car to potential buyers.  Since most popular video sites that rely on user content allow embedding video on other sites, we will not be burdened with creating a video platform since we can just integrate with services that already exist.

    Functional Requirements (web and mobile versions)

    • The system shall permit a user to search all the car listings by different attributes and keywords such as make, model, price, color … etc.

    • The system shall allow users to register to the website.

    • The system shall provide a login system to allow registered users to login to the website and store their personal information securely.

    • The system shall provide a login information retrieval system in case a user forget the username or the password using different ways such as email address or security questions.

    • The system shall provide the registered users with a selling interface to help them post their car advertisements.

    • The system shall allow the registered users to add different enhancements to the advertisement such description, pictures, videos…etc.

    • The system shall provide the registered users with a control interface to control their advertisements and profiles for editing, adding and deleting both the advertisement and profile information.

    • The system shall provide users to contact the auto sellers.

    • The system shall provide the users with a notification system so the users can specify features and attributes they like on a car and when some user post an advertisement with same features and attributes the notification system will send the user a notification.

    Information Architecture


    download

    High Level Process Flows

    Interface Requirements/Specifications

    The website will use a 1024 x 768 resolution since almost all of internet users are that resolution or greater (source).  The mobile site will be optimized for a 480 x 320 screen resolution.  This resolution works with newer smart phones and is the standard for many older ones (like the iPhone 3).  Before submitting forms we will be performing validation using JavaScript, whenever possible.  JavaScript validation is quicker because it occurs on the client side and it eliminates unnecessary server traffic and reduces the chances of a user receiving an error message because of a bad input.  The mobile site will use a slightly different CSS file, but the changes will just be made to optimize the use of the smaller screen.  We still want to maintain a consistent look across both versions of the website.

    Each page will have the site name prominently displayed with our logo.  Global navigation and footer content will also be consistent across the site.  The Login link will be the place where authentication is done before accessing the MyCars section.  The MyCars section will require a valid username and password.  An image of the car will be included next to any listing.  When listings are returned in a search result, a thumbnail will be used to save space.  The car detail page will use a slideshow to display many images in a small amount of space.  This will reduce the amount of scrolling needed and allows a user to look at the pictures and details at the same time.

    Information and Data Requirements

    Simply, we will have a login table for the user’s login information so the system identifies the user and secures his/her information and also provides a way to retrieve lost login information.  Moreover, we will have a user table for keeping user information such the contact information. The most important table is the advertisement table which has all the information about certain car posting as well as whether or not the ad is still active. The cars table will have all make and model information for the cars in the market.  Data on options will be stored in two options tables to reduce the amount of null values and so options only have to be defined once.  However, both the photos and videos tables have same idea, tables for keeping the html links for the photos and videos for a car.

    Login table

    Username

    Password

    UserID

    SecurityQ

    answer

     

    User table

    UserID

    Fname

    Lname

    Address

    City

    Zip

    State

    phone

    Email

    SellerType

    Advertisement table

    AdID

    UserID

    CarID

    Price

    Year

    Mileage

    ExteriorCol

    InteriorCol

    carStyle

    Transmission

    Engine

    Drive

    Doors

    Fuel

    Active

     

    Cars table

    carID

    Make

    Model

    CarOptions table

    CarID

    OptionID

    OptionsDetails table

    OptionID

    OptionName

    Photos table

    PhotoID

    AdID

    plink

    Pdescription

    Videos table

    videoID

    AdID

    vlink

    vdescription

    Asad: Functional Requirements & Information & data Requirements
    Ben : Project Description & Interface Requirements
    Matt: Information Architecture
    Betsy: High Level Process Flows