Judys Book - A Full Web Application Redesign
Judys Book
In early May, VinaSource was retained to rebuild JudysBook.com. The goals of the project were to:
- Take JudysBook.com and revamp the UI creating a better user experience.
- Simplify the code base as JudysBook.com was three years old but had mutliple developers, unnecessary complexity, and noone left from the original team and no documentation on how the website was built. In addition, JudysBook.com was originally a reviews based site, that changed to a deals based site, and then was patchworked to try and show both. This meant multiple user databases, multiple content formats, and many other issues.
- Retain all URL's so that SEO and inbound links were not affected.
- Do it quick to ensure key partners would stay on board with the reviews piece.
This project was set on a very aggressive schedule of six weeks with three developers. Along the way, a local based PM and some test resources were added in to round out the SDLC. Development ramp up time with the existing code base and complexity surrounding the various features turned out to be longer than estimated and the project ended up completing in two months..
The result, a clean new look and feel with a completely rewritten code base that takes advantage of .net 3.5, SQL Server 2000 and Ajax. Some key technical integration pieces were:
1. Lucene Search
2. Google Maps API
3. Google GeoCoding service
Users can easily find businesses, review them and find related businesses using a clean Google maps implementation.
JudysBook.com will be keeping three developers on board for site tuning and new feature launches planned over the next six months and hopefully beyond, thus accomplishing the feat of managing a fully outsourced development team with a US based Project Manager.
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Judys Book - A Full Web Application Redesign
By: by David Hajdu
Judys Book
In early May, VinaSource was retained to rebuild JudysBook.com. The goals of the project were to:
- Take JudysBook.com and revamp the UI creating a better user experience.
- Simplify the code base as JudysBook.com was three years old but had mutliple developers, unnecessary complexity, and noone left from the original team and no documentation on how the website was built. In addition, JudysBook.com was originally a reviews based site, that changed to a deals based site, and then was patchworked to try and show both. This meant multiple user databases, multiple content formats, and many other issues.
- Retain all URL's so that SEO and inbound links were not affected.
- Do it quick to ensure key partners would stay on board with the reviews piece.
This project was set on a very aggressive schedule of six weeks with three developers. Along the way, a local based PM and some test resources were added in to round out the SDLC. Development ramp up time with the existing code base and complexity surrounding the various features turned out to be longer than estimated and the project ended up completing in two months..
The result, a clean new look and feel with a completely rewritten code base that takes advantage of .net 3.5, SQL Server 2000 and Ajax. Some key technical integration pieces were:
1. Lucene Search
2. Google Maps API
3. Google GeoCoding service
Users can easily find businesses, review them and find related businesses using a clean Google maps implementation.
JudysBook.com will be keeping three developers on board for site tuning and new feature launches planned over the next six months and hopefully beyond, thus accomplishing the feat of managing a fully outsourced development team with a US based Project Manager.