WeNeedSigns is aiming to build over 1,000 pre-designed signs for customer to choose. In the first week of getting this order, I was thinking about 2 main challenges--
1) how to get the right set of search results with just a few clicks by first-time visitors
2) how to provide an online design tool that even a granny can use without much support
Here is my answer to the first challenge:
X-cart keyword search is not bad at all. It looks into product's title, short description, and keyword sets. Store owner, product manager, needs to add keywords when build up it's product database. It's OK when adding the keywords for hundreds of products. But for thousands, the approach should be adjusted.
I play with online photo album on Flickr a lot.
Photo Tags is an easy way to locate the picture from thousands of previously posted pictures. Furthermore, I saw many websites with dynamic contents deployed the same tool in providing up-to-date shortcuts to their visitors.
It's a good idea to adopt. But, we need to modify the x-cart modules. Here is the additional construction that we did to meet the demands.
The bottom line is that our tool can scoop out items quickly and precisely. I need to satisfy 2 conditions
-- not missing anything in answering a request (comprehension)
-- not mis-interpreting a request (precision)
Answer to above request is
1) make the tag as comprehensive as possible
2) to Refine the search results over the scoop-out
3. build a tag word adding tool, that will add these inheritaged attributes to the tag set of a sign
-- Product category of different levels
-- available product materials
-- Product titles
-- Additional keywords
-- easily clone the tags from one sign to another
4. In programming algorithm, the tag cloud is just an output form. We need to create the input (feed) stream and that will keep the cloud fresh and dynamic. Here, we define the input feed from 2 origins: keyword searching, and browsing destination.
So far, I won't think our sample of search or browsing could actually verify the modification is done well or not. We are crossing our finger to look forward huge demands flooding in.
