Overview:
This project was to design a new website for natural home based remedies. Users will get top 30 natural remedies with a drop down of all remedies in left area at all pages. Revenue model of the website is GOOGLE ad sense. SEO is an important criterion for success of this website. Resource page has badge signup users listing along with content managed by CMS. Vendor details like business name, type, owner, email, phone, and address will be seen after clicking on vendor link in listing page. This website will be designed using DIV / CSS layout. Content Management system will be used extensively to manage the static pages and natural treatments. Breadcrumb will be present on each inner page. This website will be developed using open source LAMP architecture with PHP5 and MySQL 5. Ajax will be used extensively throughout the website and website will be browser compatible for IE 6/7, Safari, and Firefox.
There will be three types of registration at website namely, individual, author, and business. Individual user can personalize natural treatment interface, setup alerts, form communities, and participate in others communities. Individual can also rate treatments. Author shares his knowledge with thousands of natural treatment users. Author gets an interface to write articles and can see ratings on his article. Business registered users get their own pages at natural treatment website. Therefore, business user gains access to thousands of more patients, users daily, and they also get opportunity to share their knowledge and wellbeing of people.
In this document we have provided the feature list and technology architecture overview for this e-commerce portal.
Feature List
The scope of work done by Option Matrix is listed below.
We have listed the capabilities, which the site will provide for the various user types like site visitors / members, and employee / administration staff. The site features have been classified under member portal, and admin portal.
Member Portal is the public site where first time visitors can be registered and know more about the service. Members can do a variety of actions and the capabilities that the front-end portal will offer are listed below:
| # | Feature | Design Approach |
| 1 | Home Page will have a contemporary and corporate design with informational pages about the services and terms of business. | Header area will also contain company logo, search remedy, submit remedy, link to join website, bookmark the website, and subscribe to newsletter. There will be another row in header area and it will have links like Home remedies, articles, and specialist, ask a question, blog, health tips, and RSS news link with text boxes to login as per login credentials. First body part has some sections with tabs like latest articles, latest questions, and answers, top searches, what’s new on ‘natural treatment’ links, subscribe newsletter area, and send us your question with email area. Footer area will contain general items like questions archive, Site Map, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Disclaimer. Search remedies will be available in header area to access it from all pages, and it will lead to remedy listing page. This website will be three columnar. 1st Left column will contain top 30 remedies links and right column will be used for Google ad sense or showing details of remedy. 3rd column will be used to show the resources associated with remedy. |
| 2 | Members can fill a simple registration form and register on the site with a login account for standard authentication. This form will have CAPTCHA security. Standard login feature with change password will be used for authentication. ‘My account’ has ‘update profile’ feature to update profile details. | There will be several fields in form like username, first name, last name, email address, password, and CAPTCHA text box for word verification, date of birth, security question, answer and ‘how visitor know about website’ etc. Registration may span to several pages and visitor has to answer questions like which questions he wants to answer and for which treatment category. There will be three types of registration namely individual, author, and business. Individual user can personalize natural treatment interface, setup alerts, form communities, and participate in others communities. Individual can also rate treatments. Author share his knowledge with thousands of natural treatment users. Author gets an interface to write articles and can see ratings on his article. Author can sell his books also online. Business registered users get their own pages at natural treatment website. Therefore, business user gains access to thousands of more patients, users daily and he gets an opportunity to share his knowledge and wellbeing of people. |
| 3 | Search treatment page shows lists associated with search keyword | Search treatment page shows treatment lists with Google ad sense. It also shows top searches section and top resources section in right column. Inner pages are shown with detailed content and other links along with facility to email a friend, 'Send a question', related topics, related-blogs, and resources. FAQ and Articles related with keyword are also shown in this page. There will be pagination to show more treatments related with search keyword. |
| 4 | Browse articles | This page will show article listing and ad sense with article keywords shown for top 2 articles. Number of articles in each category is also shown with small article category description. If article link is clicked then inner page will show all articles of that category with description and more information link. All pages will have Google ad sense for top 2 topics. If any article is clicked then it will show detailed content for that article. Breadcrumb is very important if content is displayed in this manner. |
| 5 | Browse specialists | This will show listing of business users with their mail address, web site no follow link, specialty category, and links for their website home page, phone number, and email. Detailed information and dedicated page for that user can be seen after clicking on their name in listing page. |
| 6 | Ask a question | User gets an interface to select question category and text area to write his question. Entering email address is mandatory in this form. 10 latest questions are shown as link text under submit question button. If link will be clicked then user can see answer suggested for question. Detailed answer page has related topics section and related links. Any topic page is divided in several sections like symptoms, causes, treatment, FAQ, top 20 treatments. |
| 7 | Browse Blog | Blog page has blog category listing in left column, middle part has blog title with rating, share blog link, submitted category, complete blog, and related posts section for that blog. User can rate any blog post. Users can DIGG the blog. |
| 8 | Browse Yoga | Yoga page may have several sub headers like kids, women, basic, style etc. These sub-headers have their individual pages and content. Yoga page has content managed from admin panel through CMS. All internal and main pages are divided in three parts. Left column has category, middle column has content with ad sense and right column has sections like submit questions, related topics, related blogs etc. |
| 9 | Browse Vitamins page | Vitamins will be similar in design as of Yoga page. Vitamins header is also divided in several sub headers and every sub header has its own individual content page. These contents are written using CMS through admin panel. Vitamin sub headers may be vitamin deficiency, B Complex vitamins etc. |
| 10 | Browse Health Tips | Health tip page has index of health tips in left column. Detailed health tips with ad sense in middle column and right column with similar sections viz. submit question, related topics, and related blogs. |
| 11 | Submit remedy | This page has several fields like remedy title, describe remedy, email address, first name and last name of user who is submitting treatment. |
| 12 | Top resources | Users can browse through top resources section and get information about professional / business user in any category. |
| 13 | Member can browse static pages like terms of service, fee, disclaimer and privacy policy and can contact admin by email / phone through contact us page | These informational pages will be updated by admin through WYSIWYG FCK editor and member can browse these pages from any page. |
| 15 | Member can browse FAQ section | Admin can update FAQ section through WYSIWYG FCK editor and member can browse FAQ section from any page. |
| 16 | Member can subscribe for newsletter | Visitor / Member enter his name, email address, and country to get admin published newsletters. |
| 17 | User browse through top searches | Top search keyword is listed in top searches and users can click on any search keyword directly to access information associated with it. |
| 18 | Submit article | Author can submit article by selecting category, and entering author name, article date, subject, and description. WYSIWYG FCK editor will be provided to submit article content. |
| 19 | Submit business information | Business user will update his business information in his profile or he can provide all information at registration time. Until he does not provide all information, his profile is not shown at resources section. |
Admin Panel
Admin Panel is the control panel for the super user and any admin staff to whom specific rights are delegated. Users, permissions, content, and settings can be managed from this section. Site statistics can be viewed in admin panel. There will be an admin area to provide access rights to staffs and volunteers. Admin area will also be two columnar. In left column there will be different links to manage the website / members and right column will contain the result of corresponding link. The list of features in the admin control panel is listed in next page:
| # | Feature | Design Approach |
| 1 | There will be FAQ section managed from admin panel | WYSIWYG FCK editor will be used to manage FAQ section. FAQ section may be divided in different categories. |
| 2 | Static content of website can be managed by a WYSIWYG FCK editor | All informational pages will be available in category drop down list and if category is divided in sub category then sub category drop down list will also be present to select and WYSIWYG editor will be used to edit content for selected informational page. |
| 3 | Admin can browse a report of submitted articles based on date range, user id, article subject name | There will be a grid with search feature based on keyword, date range, user id and article subject name. A listing will be shown with the above details. Pagination will be used to show more than 20 transactions set by default. No of transactions in a page can also be changed. Admin can approve article so that article will be displayed in article section. |
| 4 | Admin approves remedy | Admin gets a remedy listing in a grid suggested by users. Admin approves the remedy and it will be displayed in remedy section. |
| 5 | Admin can send messages / emails | Admin get an interface to select members and send WYSIWYG FCK editor prepared message. |
| 6 | Admin approves business information | Admin gets an interface to approve or reject business information and sends message to complete the information. |
| 7 | Admin can browse different statistics related with member activity at different pages along with time spent at each page. Google analytics will be used for it. Admin can view a summary dashboard about the site activity and can query detailed event / user statistics. Admin can track users and subscribers website usage patterns. Admin can track visitor activity. | Google analytics will be used to track user activity. User can be tracked that how much time he has spent at each page and which page is most popular. This service will be as per Google analytics service availability and basic statistics will be displayed. Admin gets a dashboard to see users’ activity and event log records these activities with frequency of event master activities. |
| 8 | Admin can login, logout and change password | Admin will get an interface to enter user name and password for login and then he can change password / logout. |
| 9 | Admin can create staff accounts and give access rights and can do shadow login | There will be an interface to update and create staff account. Another page has access rights displayed with check boxes. Staffs will be available in drop down box and after selecting the staff and rights, save button has to be clicked to save information in database. Staff can access links only if they are permitted for it in access rights section. Admin can enter on behalf of any staff through shadow login. Shadow login feature will be available in first page where staff profile is created and displayed in a grid. |
| 10 | Manage Lookup options for all choices in drop down boxes within forms | There will be an interface to browse all drop downs used in application and any new drop down choice can be created / updated here. |
| 11 | Update default settings for website | There will be some label and text boxes to store values for default settings throughout the application. |
| 12 | Admin decides and approve ‘what’s new’ section topics. | If some check on publishing content is needed, then admin can enter all abusive words in an interface and these abusive words can be automatically checked for all submitted articles. Admin gets an interface and check boxes to select ‘what’s new’ topics. If admin click on ‘auto what’s new’ link then system automatically selects latest 5 articles for ‘what’s new’ section. |
| 13 | Admin can manage newsletters and publish them using content management tool. | WYSIWYG FCK editor is provided to enter content for newsletter and it will be sent to all newsletter subscribers. |
| 14 | Admin browse top searches | Admin gets a grid listing of all searches and decides top searches keyword either manually or automatically by system. |
| 15 | Admin answers questions asked for an expert or pass question to any member in that category | Admin gets a listing of questions asked and filter question based on category. Admin also gets a drop down of experts for that category and he can send question to expert. Admin tracks whether question is answered or not and if not answered in time then he can write answers by himself. Admin also gets a listing of answers submitted by experts and approve or update the answer. |
| 16 | Admin decides top resources | Admin gets a listing of top resources business user and select users with check boxes so that they would appear in top resources. |
| 17 | Admin manage contents for treatments | Admin gets an interface to update content for treatment using WYSIWYG FCK editor. Admin also update content for all information, which is part of the website related with treatment. Admin gets an interface to update categories and sub-categories for article / treatment. |
| 18 | Admin manages users and can do shadow login to do activity on behalf of them | Admin gets an interface of all types of users. He can do shadow login and without entering password he can do all user activity on behalf of them. He can update their profile information also. |
| 19 | Admin manages blog | Admin gets an interface to update blog content using CMS. |
| 20 | Admin manages article rating | Admin gets an interface to browse rating and adjust it |
Technology Architecture
The proposed application will be programmed in web architecture using PHP 5 and MY SQL 5 as RDBMS (LAMP architecture). Application architecture will be centralized for easy manageability. Application will be optimized for Internet Explorer 6+ but HTML 4 compliance will be preserved to ensure cross browser compatibility with other common browsers like Firefox, Safari and Netscape Navigator.
Cross browser compatibility is largely ensured through use of XHTML 1.0 and HTML 4 compliance. All application testing will be done in Firefox which has a more restrictive implementation of HTML / JavaScript and this ensures that it runs well in IE browsers too. Any cross browser issues will be debugged if they arise during module testing. Optimistic locking will be used in database operations to improve concurrent user performance. Extensive use of stored procedures will ease network traffic and database performance. The project developed in the LAMP environment. The acronym LAMP refers to a solution stack of software programs, commonly open source programs, used together to run dynamic Web sites or servers. The original expansion is as follows: Linux, referring to the operating system; Apache, the Web server; MySQL, the database management system (or database server); PHP, the programming language. Linux utilizes the latest stable kernel version. The underlying ext3 file system is a well-proven technology for both rapid recovery and protecting the integrity of the data on the server. Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation.
MySQL database, another robust open source tool that has revolutionized the way web pages, graphics, tables, and data sets of all sorts are served up on the web. Web-based databases in general, and MySQL in particular, have made it possible to build and present fully dynamic websites, capable of presenting content in real time. They have also helped to further the goal of separating content from formatting, speeding the load time of sites while making them far more manageable than in the past. PHP has, in just a few short years, become one of the predominant scripting languages on the web. With a relatively easy syntax and open source licensing, webmasters and developers around the world have migrated to PHP from the more difficult and syntactically challenging scripting languages like Perl.
PEAR coding standards were used throughout the application.
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© 2009 Option Matrix InfoTech Pvt. Ltd.