Project Detail

Description

Project Details:
We need a Web 2.0 directory and review website(10-12 pages) that users can search, read and post reviews about facility (e.g Hotel, Hospital, Restaurant etc). Think of the site as a Directory with ability to post/read reviews. Similar in functional aspects to TripAdvisor.com. Initial phase will support the following features.
1. Search Facilities using various search criteria and be able to sort and filter the results.
2. View the facility public profile page in a ‘tab’ format. The public profile will consist of various tabs like Services, Prices, Reviews, Map etc. Each tab will consist of a content panel that can have multiple sections with text, photos etc.
3. Read and Post reviews (text, photo and videos) about a facility. The post review form will consist of multiple text areas to capture reviews and upto five ‘5-Star’ widgets (clickable) that will capture the ratings.
4. Register, Login and manage facility(s) for Suppliers. This area will need to be SSL encrypted. Once registered, the activation link will be sent to the email address provided. Once activated the facility manager (or broker) can add Facilities to the directory for listing. ‘Add Facility Form’ will be similar to the ‘facility public profile’ with multiple tabs and each tab consisting of multiple input fields. Only a sub-set of the information captured here will be part of the public profile. More on this later in the document.
5. Administrative scripts for webmaster to reset supplier password, delete facility, or modify facility details.
6. Search Engine Optimized for ALL pages except the supplier login/private areas.

Each of the above pages will have Banner Ads to the right side (Skyscraper 120x600) of the page. The pages will need to be strict xHTML compliant with AJAX calls to minimize page refreshes. Usage of library widgets like EXT-JS, YUI or GWT is encouraged. The site style will be CSS based and the look and feel should be like the one at www.movabletype.org.

What we can provide:
1. Website Template(from a web-based template provider, HTML format)
2. Database design/model (SQL)
3. Wireframes / Page mockups (Visio format)
4. System/Application Architectural design (Discussion with developers)

Technologies:
Web 2.0 for User Interface
1. Web pages DHTML, Javascript, CSS using EXT JS or YUI toolkits
2. AJAX based using JSON or SOAP/XML
3. LAMP on Server - Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.
4. Usage of PHP Object Generator(POG) to quicken development.

Appeal:
The site will appeal to elder people(40-70 years) and so will need to be very clean, clutter-free, minimal widgets and pictorial(intuitive image based).

Timeframe:
I open for discussion on this but generally expect to finish in 4-6 weeks.

What we are looking for:
A provider who is a self-learner, adapt to business changes, creative to suggest UI design and enhancements and assure Quality through rigorous testing(QA). Obviously experience with above technologies is a MUST unless they can suggest alternatives. The heart of this website lies in the crisp/clean widget-based User Interface, so emphasis will be on UI design. Will need to report progress and discuss with Architect on a daily basis. As we are in USA, if the provider is international they will need a VOIP phone to discuss daily progress.

Facility Profile Tabs
The user interface for viewing public profile and creating/updating facility details will be ‘Tab-based’. Each tab will consist of text, image, video content sections. The site admin will decide what tabs are needed for a facility. This should be based on a category of the facility e.g A facility of type ‘Hospital’ might have Overview, Treatments/Prices, Map, Staff, Review tabs while a facility of type ‘Restaurant’ might have Overview, Menu, Map, Reviews.
This tab configuration will be an admin function that can be setup (and changed) for various types of facilities. The content in each tab will need to be configurable. i.e going by the same above example, the ‘Overview’ tab for a Hospital might have photos/videos, Staff, Beds, Equipment sections while the restaurant might have Cuisine, Photos/Videos, Capacity, Awards etc.
The bottom line is that this tab and content panel is configurable and dynamic in nature. And a Web 2.0 widget should allow us to have this on our website.
The above admin function (to configure these tabs) is needed but need not be implemented in this phase. But at the least it’s assumed that changing these tabs should be pretty easy and completely decoupled from the Web page.