Web Development for Information Management - Research Proposal Example

Web Development for Information Management Table of Contents Background Research 3 Mission ment 7 Quality Evaluation Criteria 7 Success Evaluation Criteria 8 Visual Style of the Prototype 9 Navigational Map 15 Storyboards 16 References 20 Background Research As Internet has become immensely embedded into our daily lives, use of websites that offer delivery of food at door steps by placing an order online, has become increasingly popular. The strategy has proven to not only increase the sales of the food businesses around the world but has also increased the degree of overall customer satisfaction. Any company that makes food and has staff to get it delivered can make its business website and increase the revenues. After studying a few such food delivery service websites (“Real Time Food Internet Ordering System”,“Boston Pizza”, “Zuppler Online Ordering Menus”, “Funny Cow Fast Food”, “Hoagies & Wings, LA”), it was observed that there is an underlying trend that is generally followed while designing food delivery websites. Usually, a food provider hosts a website with a URL that depicts the food company’s name or some memorable association to it; a name that the customers can easily remember. On the homepage of the website is displayed the logo of the company, contact details and a detailed menu of the company’s food items with pricing, the delivery time, availability and cost for all the items. Figure 1 Home Page of a Typical Food Ordering Website The customer is given the option to select food items from the menu displayed on the homepage. Whatever item the customer selects, it is added to an item’s cart that displays the total accumulated billing of the order so far along with the items selected. Figure 2 Selected Items Added to the Order List Once the customer is done selecting the items, he/she selects the check-out option from menu. In case, the customer is new, he/she provides some personal information (i.e. contact detail and delivery address) to register to the site and place the order. This information is stored within a database maintained by the food providers. In case, the customer is not new, he/she can use the login details from the past orders. The personal information will be retrieved automatically based on these details and the order will be placed automatically. The payment is done either online by provide credit card details or by hand on delivery. Once the order is placed, a notification is sent to the food provider regarding the placement of an order. This could be through sms, fax or a notification on the system running at the provider’s work area. Figure 3 Notification of New Order Placed The orders can be grouped into ‘completed’, ‘active’ and ‘pending’. Once the provider accepts an order, a confirmation is sent to the customer, either through an email or sms. The staff starts preparing the ordered food. Once the food is prepared, it is handed over to the delivery staff, which gets it delivered to the customer and confirms delivery and receipt of payment. The detail about the particular delivering staff member, the confirmation and time of delivery is also recorded in the system alongside the order number. The customer can log in to the system and provide feedback regarding the delivery experience. So generally, there are two interfaces that need to be developed for a food delivery website; an interface for the customers and an interface for the food providers. The customers will use their interface for placing orders. The food providers would use their interface for updating of menus, prices, etc. or keeping record of the daily sales, orders, customers and delivery details. Mission Statement We are dedicated to providing our clients with a fast, secure, attractive online food delivery website with a simplified management interface for defining menus and keeping daily records. The website will offer a comfortable, friendly online presence to its users and make their online experience satisfying. Quality Evaluation Criteria This section defines a list of criteria that can be used for measuring the quality of the proposed website in comparison with the competitor websites. 1. Ease of Placing Order: If the customer is not able to understand the flow of the website, the menus, etc. and has a hard time to place an order, a slight level of disappointment will settle within the customer even before placing the order. 2. Sound Presentation: The layout of the site must be such that the menus are not cluttered. The pricings and details of the menu items are in a font that is big enough and clear enough to be easily read. The colors of fonts and backgrounds must not require stressing the eyes or cause them to pinch. All the pages of the site must follow one theme to make the transitions between pages smooth. 3. Easy Navigation: The customer must be able to navigate between the various areas of the website, e.g. the items menus, the selected items list, the feedback page, the contact page, etc. 4. Technically Sound: There should be no broken links on the website. When a customer selects an item, it should immediately be added in the cart along with the grand total, etc. 5. Loading Time: The website must be fast. The graphics used should be light enough so that they load quickly and do not cause the customer to wait. The items in the cart must be updated instantly as per the selection decisions made by the customer. 6. Accurate Billing: The calculations of total bill for items in the cart must be accurate. The prices must be the same as depicted on the menu listing, etc. 7. Browser Compliant: The website must display correctly in all the popular browsers i.e. IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc. 8. Ease of Contacting: The customer is able to contact the people behind the website easily through emails, forms or phone calls. The contact details (emails, phone/fax numbers) must be in service. 9. Correct Content: The content presented on the website must be free from grammatical and vocabulary mistakes. 10. URL Clarity: The URL is simple, professional and is taken seriously. It depicts the company, has a meaning and is memorable. Success Evaluation Criteria This section presents five criteria that can be used in future to determine the success of the proposed website once its finalized and published. 1. Customer Reviews: The positive reviews posted by the customers depict the fact that the overall website experience was a success. By providing a rating system to the customer against each order placed, specified feedback can be achieved against all measures e.g. whether site was user friendly, there were no billing mistakes, the delivery was in time and the customer was satisfied. 2. Returning Customers: By knowing the number of orders made each customer, it can be deduced that the service was satisfying enough for the customers that they used it again. The measure of one-time customers vs. more-than-one-time customers is suggestive of reliable clientele. 3. New Customers: The number of new customers depicts the success of the general outlook of the website, its design, the meal deals and promos. In case, the company has launched any advertisements, the number of new customers can suggest the success of the ad campaign. 4. Increase in Revenue: The record of daily sales can be used to assess the increase in the revenue brought to the business on daily basis against some particular menu for the day. 5. Low Bounce Rate: By knowing the bounce rate of the website, the level of appeal of the website can be deduced. Bounce rate suggests that the customer registered to the site, but did not place any order. Visual Style of the Prototype The site’s layout will have three divisions; the header, the content and the footer. The colour theme for the site is red, white and black. All text will have shades of these three basic colours. 1. Home Page: The layout of the home page (the header, footer and the navigation bar) and the colour scheme would be as shown in Figure. Figure 4 Home Page Layout The navigation bar beside the logo is for the customers. The link to the active page will be highlighted as white, while the inactive pages would be deeper shade of red as shown in figure. The background of the website would be white while the element containing the forms would have a gray background. All the headings of the website would have red coloured verdana font text. In case, a provider wants to login to the website, he/she clicks the “Provider Panel” button on the right top. 2. About Us: This is the informational page about the company, and does not need logging in to be accessed. The theme is kept consistent with that of home page. In order to go back to home, the logo will have to be clicked by a user. Figure 5 The "About Us" Page 3. Contact Us: The page displays details to contact the service providers. The user can send an email to the providers through the form provided on the webpage. Clicking the logo would take the user back to the home page. Figure 6 “Contact Us” Page 4. Provider Home Page The provider can see the menu for the day and the orders data in the available panel provided on this page. The orders are categorized as pending (i.e. orders that need approval), active (i.e. orders that are being cooked or sent to be delivered) and completed (i.e. orders that have been delivered to customers). The menu displays the items and the associated prices. The provider can edit the menu items, their category, their prices and descriptions. An item can even be added. Figure 7 Providers Home Panel 5. Customer Selection Page The customer is presented with the menu items organized according to their categories. A short description is also added with the item. Any item can be selected by clicking the add button. Once selected, it becomes visible in the order list displayed on the right side of the screen. Figure 8 Customer Order Selection Page 6. Review Page: This page displays the items selected to be delivered, the amount of taxes applied on them, delivery costs and the grand total. In case, the customer wants to edit the order, cancel an item, edit it, or add yet another item it can be done from this page. 7. Confirmation Page: This page displays the final details of the order. Once the customer clicks the “confirm order” button, the order is sent to the provider. A confirmation message is displayed on the page. 8. My Account Page: This page displays the profile of the customer (name, address, email and phone number). Alongside that it displays all the orders that have ever been placed by the customer. The status of the order is also listed. A link to provide feedback is also available next to every completed order. Navigational Map The website has a hierarchal organization. The Navigation Map of the website is shown in Figure. From the Home page, a user can go to either customer’s interface, provider’s interface, the information page or the contact page. Figure 9 Navigation Map of Website Storyboards This section provides the storyboards for two of the website’s pages; the home page and the food items selection menu. 1. Storyboard for Home Page Figure 10 Storyboard for Page 0: Home Page Page 0: The home page is displayed when a user enters the URL in the browser. In case the user wants to know about the company, he/she clicks the “About Us” link. In case the user wants to contact the providers, he/she clicks the “Contact Us” link. The horizontal Menu on top displays the order placement steps for the customers. The button “Provider Panel” is for the providers to login and manage orders and menus. In case, the customer is a new user, he/she clicks the “No I’m new here” radio button and fills all the text boxes with required info. In case, the customer is a returning customer, he/she clicks the “Yup, I’m back for more” radio button and provides the email and password. In case a customer wishes the browser to remember his/her login details, the check box next to “remember my email” must be checked. After the customer has filled the required text boxes, he/she specifies the date and time for the delivery. Once all data has been provided by the customer, he/she clicks the “Continue” button. 2. Storyboard for Order Selection Page Figure 11 Storyboard for Page 1: Item Selection Page Page 1: The page is displayed when the user presses the “Continue” button on Page 0. The “My Account” button when clicked takes the customer to their account information page containing their profile and past orders. The horizontal status bar depicts the current step of the ordering process which is highlighted with white colour. The delivery time of the order is depicted on the right top. The time can be edited by clicking the “Edit” link next to the timing. The food items are displayed next to each category listed. The customer clicks the “Add” button next to an item to select it for ordering. Once the customer clicks “Add” button, the item is added to the order list in the right corner of the page. The price and quantity is displayed alongside, with the grand total. In case the customer wants to edit the order i.e. increase quantity, he/she clicks the “Edit” button. In case the customer wishes to cancel an item, he/she clicks the “X” button next to item. In case the customer wishes to cancel the order altogether, he/she clicks the “Cancel this order” link. All items are cleared. In case, the customer wishes to check out, the “Check Out” button is clicked, which takes the customer to the review order page. In case the customer wishes to read information about the company, he/she clicks the “About Us” link. In case the customer wishes to contact the providers, he/she clicks the “Contact Us” link. References Hoagies & Wings, LA. Viewed 23 February 2012 http://los-angeles.eat24hours.com/hoagies-wings-la/1044. Real Time Food Internet Ordering System. Viewed 23 February 2012 http://www.internetfoodorder.com. Zuppler Online Ordering Menus. Viewed 23 February 2012 http://zupplerworks.com/. Funny Cow Fast Food. Viewed 23 February 2012 http://www.funnycowfastfood.com/index.html. Boston Pizza. Viewed 23 February 2012 http://bostonpizza.com/en. Read More