Case Study - cafe guide

Application: Cafe Directory Application 

Industry: F&B and Retail

Aim: To design a web based worldwide cafe directory where cafe owners and coffee lovers can interact with each other. 

Background: The website owner contacted us to develop a website with enhanced features for the Admin, Cafe owners and site visitors. What the client needed was a feature rich website with data integration and enhanced user section functionality. 

Objectives: Some of the objectives that lay in front of us were: Solution: The final output produced by our development team provided the client a significantly improved and engaging user environment. The website proved to be convenient both for the client and also its various user segments. The design of the website is user-friendly, and even a non-technical person can control the admin section conveniently. The website design allows cafe owners to add their cafe listing and also purchase enhanced listings, give out coupons and more. Site visitors can quickly search for cafes in their area and also post reviews, download coupons. 

Technical Background:
PHP 4.0 and MySql on the server-side
HTML and Javascript on the client-side

Following group of persons are involved in the site's operation:
Site Administrator: Either Site administrator or the person authorized by him can access the admin area. Admin Area is fully password protected. Some of the features available to the administrator are:
  1. Control Page Accessibility 
    • The site manager can control the accessibility of any page any time on the visitor site so that it is available only to registered users
    • Can change the password of the admin area
  2. Manage Registered Users
    • Search / View / Update / Delete
  3. Manage Cafe Owners
    • Search / View / Update / Delete
  4. Configure Cage Listings
    • Cafe Listing Price: The administrator can update the cafe listing prices for all types & all currency at any time without any limitation
    • Cafe Listing Display Duration:  Admin can also set a cafe listing display duration, that is the period for which the cafe listing will be displayed to website visitors when the cafe owner purchases a paid listing.
  5. Manage Cafe Listing
    • Search / View / Update / Delete
    • Can set the date, from which listing will start displaying in the visitor section
    • Can alter the duration for which listing will be displayed in the visitor section
    • Can Suspend / Cancel the listing in case its payment is not received
  6. Manage Cafe Coupons
    • According to the type of listing purchased, the cafe owner has the option of offering from amongst some pre-specified cafe coupons. These coupons are displayed on their cafe page  and website visitors can print and redeem coupons at their outlets.
    • The website administrator has the right to add more coupons, view, update coupons details & delete coupons to individual cafe listing.
    • Just as the case with cafe coupons, the listing type determines how many images can be uploaded by the cafe owner to go on his listing page. The site admin can also manage these cafe images from the backend.
Visitor: The main interest for any visitor coming on such a site is that she wants to find out the cafes available in his area or any particular area. She wants to know which ones are good and which ones have a great deal going. For this the following features were added onto the website to maximise user satisfaction: Registered User: Registered users are those visitors who have created a member account and have some special access. For example, they can:
  1. Visit secure pages of the website (Secured by the website administrator)
  2. Add & view reviews for any café listing.
  3. Manage their profile
Cafe Owners: The cafe owners have access to the cafe owner area and can access the following features: