Ames' syllabi

The overall strategy of FuelPass is reliant on its goals. It is, quite simply, an EZ-Pass for gas, with goals to be intuitive, simple, powerful and reliant. Intuition stems from an easy-to-use interface, simple explanations for detailed use-cases and a well-designed information architecture that shows where the user is, relative to the home page. Simplicity and powerfulness relate when an action can callback to a powerful function or method. These facets will be apparent when the user pulls up to get gas and do not have to go through the normal routine. Reliant technologies can be created as infrastructure is built up on a scalable, relational database. Once users are feeding in exponential data, and this data is crunched algorithmically, reliability will be improved. Even on a small scale, reliableness may stem from talking to users on a case-by-case basis, to ensure technology is working as it should.

The user wants to easily purchase gas, and can do so without the use of cash or a card, with FuelPass. They may not even have to leave their car, in applicable cases. They may hope to gain insight into what FuelPass is. In their case, they will need pictures of the product, explanations, a shopping cart for purchasing, a login system for saving their information, etc. As the creator of the website, I hope that all interactions leave the user with a positive feeling about the site and product, and do not automatically turn users off with gimmicks or useless pages, features, etc. The point would be to consolidate information, eliminate redundancies and elicit positive emotions.
The strategy and features of a site align themselves clearly. The creation of the mobile website or application will match the goals defined above, such as simplicity and intuitiveness. Technology will be cloud-based, to update profiles and balances on the fly. A user will see their balance, where they purchased gas from, a sheet of electronic receipts, and their rewards score. A function that sends this data will be based on pings from the chip, embedded in FuelPass. Once a secure connection is established, the user is able to get gas, to their chosen amount, and this data is fed to the cloud-connected servers, which update the user’s account.

There will be geo-relative chips embedded in the actual product that also relay information to the cloud, resulting in a heat map of your most used locations. This will be useful for showing most popular locations, giving increased rewards for return customers and showing where other users were able to use FuelPass. These chips will only transmit location data relative to gas stations, as laid out in the terms of use and privacy policies.

A rewards system, also available on the site, will be available to save money on gas automatically. This reward percentage is shown in the app, and this data is also provided by a simple calculation, server-side, based on amount of gas purchased, at what price, and from what provider.

Choosing to use a separate payment system, percentage saved based on location and relative notifications are available as additional features within the website. The creation of the site will provide useful information on the product, locations, rewards, and a consolidated login system. Users can learn more, order FuelPass and check their profile using this site.

Scope

            Our site is boiled down to four main elements. The first is a simple video that begins by introducing our product and explaining the problem. From there, the video will show how our product solves that problem via a side by side scene of an average morning with and without our product. This part of the video will explain each element of the system and how it works. Finally we will ask visitors for their help in funding our product.

Secondly, we have section of copy and graphics that breaks the system down to each of its physical parts as well as companion app that works with the system. The point of this section is to drill down into the details of our system and educate the user as thoroughly as possible. While most of this section will consist of simple text and graphics, we plan on building an example screen of the app in javascript that the user can interact with on the mobile site as if it was running on their phone.

Another tertiary, but still very important part of our website will be the contact portion. Here users can engage with us on social media, sign up for a newsletter, or even pose a question to the creators of the product.

Finally, our call to action is represented with a simple button prompting the user to fund our project. This section goes hand in hand with the final one: a list of rewards supporters will receive based on their contributions. These could range from a simple thank you or t-shirt all the way up to a limited edition version of the product once it is completed.

Strategy

            The main strategy of this site will focus on educating the user of the problem statement our product hopes to solve and how it goes about doing so. From there, we can move on to motivating them to fund our project as a call to action. On the face of it, our product sounds simply enough: applying the “smart home” movement to your closet to bring it into this century. However, this idea quickly breaks down into complexities that could leave potential backers with a lot of questions. How do you record your clothes? How does it signal clothes to take off the rack? How does it know which piece of clothing is tied to which hanger? All of these questions could bring one to wonder if it is really worth the trouble for a product that could easily be seen as extravagant. For that reason, are designing a step by step description that will leave visitors of our site with a solid explanation of how our product solves the problem at hand. After seeing all of the capabilities of our product laid out, our target audience of clothing junkies with expendable income will easily be able to validate the purchase.

Fortunately, this structure leads us to a logical call to action. After we explain why this product is needed, we give the easily understandable explanation of the process, followed finally by a prompt to support out project along with the rewards backers can plan to receive up on funding

The strategy for SmartCloset (internal development name) is three-fold. First, the website needs to establish a connection with the target audience. Second, it should educate the prospective customers about what our product does and how it can help them. Third, it will pitch the customer on the product, allowing them to either buy or fund it. Because SmartCloset, our innovative new wardrobe-management system, solves a problem that not everyone has, it is important that our site appeals to our target audience. Realistically, we would already be looking at a slim conversion rate, so getting every customer we can is important. If our website turns potential customers away, our bottom line would take a significant hit. Once customers are dedicated to reading our site, they will be wondering what our product does and how it functions. The bulk of our main page will be devoted to breaking down the advanced technology and intuitive, useful features built into each part of the system. Finally, if our customers find that SmartCloset is a good match for them, we’ll close with a call to action, enabling them to either fund or purchase our product.

The scope of SmartCloset’s website directly supports the three elements of its strategy. In order to connect with potential customers, the website’s look and feel should demonstrate the future-minded fashion-tech brand of our business. It can do this by using an uncluttered design with visual elements and a calm color scheme. In order to inform the audience, we will feature a commercial-style video to introduce the product to the consumer, along with pictures and copy explaining the features of the system’s components, and optionally an interactive prototype of the SmartCloset app. Finally, our call to action would need either a link to our funding campaign and a description of the rewards or a store–with a product database, credit card processing capabilities, and a shopping cart– to purchase different packages.

Woodrow Hawk

Stradegy and Scope

1/29/15

Stradegy:

Our product is SmartCloset. It is a technological dresser of sorts that organizes and picks out clothing for the user. The main goal of our business is to make money in order to fund the creation of our product. Our target audience is somewhat diverse because a young fashionable teenager might find uses in this and also busy adults that don’t have time to find specific articles of clothing. As a business, we would also like to have the goal of customer satisfaction so that when we make money, we wont be losing it to bad quality. Since our product is not up and running yet, we also would like to give rewards for those who are supporting our business before any real physical purchase is available yet. Plain and simple, we want our business running smoothly, making money, and making customer progress in satisfaction and reliability. A user’s need for this product would be depending on the person. Age, location, occupation, and culture are big factors because anyone could find a use in a closet that organizes and quickly pulls out pre-made outfits for you. Our main focus is on people who want to have outfits easily pre-made and quickly accessible. This would be adults with jobs that require changing of clothing often or professional attire. Teenagers that have a sense of fashion might enjoy this product more than any because of how one could choose between outfits they create without having to search for the clothing stashed in drawers.

Scope:

Our product, SmartCloset is meant to make life easier when choosing clothing. How do we make that easier? We found that it takes a lot of time to find articles of clothing or even making a decision of what clothing to wear. People still fold and organize their own clothing and we thought that technology is improved enough for that to not be needed anymore and therefore, save time. In order to makes these kind of situations easier, we decided on a closet fitting technological box that holds and organizes clothes into their own specified places chosen by the user. After clothes are put in, using the touchscreen on the SmartCloset or the App being developed, clothes can be group and pulled out at any time by a push of a button. We wanted people to be able to access the SmartCloset without having to be in front of it so we are developing an app for a phone or tablet to control the device from anywhere in the house. Clothes are pulled out and neatly presented to you on a drawer that the user would open when the SmartCloset has completed pulling out the clothing the user chooses. There are many options within the SmartCloset that allows any means of organization and grouping. Say the user wants everything organized by color or fabric. SmartCloset will be able to organize that for you. If the user does not know what to wear, the machine can allow you to manually search each organized drawer he/she chose. We are looking at 6-8 chambers for organization, but in the future we can look into smaller or bigger options for people to purchase or even add-ons depending on how the demand turns out.

Madison Kozlowski

ARTM2220 Project 1a – Strategy & Scope

The product that my team came up with last week is a high-tech luxury shower that bathes you, washes your hair, dries you off and does all other shower activities while you relax. Along with the basic protocol of showering, our invention is voice activated, allowing users to turn on music, adjust water temperature and give the shower specific commands. Along with this, the shower can also be a sauna. Our product is highly customizable and extremely efficient. As a start-up, we are marketing our product to high-income individuals who are willing to complete major renovations in their bathrooms and take part in a technological revolution.

By creating a mobile website for our product, my teammates and I are will accomplish three main goals: educate the world about our shower, promote and persuade people to make an inquiry and sell our showers to as many individuals as possible. While creating our company goals for the website we also explored what users of our website would want and need as well. Investigating this is very crucial in developing a website for such an innovative and shockingly futuristic product. As a user visiting our site, an information page is essential. A page that explains exactly what our product is, using precise details and leaving the user with no questions. A user also wants to know a price. Being that our product is customizable, one must call for a quote in order to know a personalized price. However, we need a step by step process explaining how quotes are determined and explain that a contractor would have to come and measure your bathroom. Along with this, we will provide a price range based on some specific shower dimensions as a guide. Again, it is important that all content on the site is extremely clear and leaves the user with no unanswered questions. Another goal of the site would be to establish our brand identity. Our product is luxurious, innovative and cutting edge. Portraying these values is also a goal of the site.

To determine the scope, we used our goals as a guide. As a company we wanted to educate users about our shower, promote and persuade people that they won’t be disappointed with our shower and finally to make sales.  In order for us to sell our product, we are going to provide a specialists number that can be contacted and also a list of distributors that can be contacted. With this, potential customers will be able to provide us with their basic information including their name, address, email address, age ect. allowing us to put them on file and provide them with information. Another asset that will promote selling is to provide a “Find a Location Near You” feature. By simply entering a zip code, the users nearest distributor will be shown.

Another goal for the site is to educate our users. A simplistic way to do this is to create an information video that includes the details about our product, how to use it, images of our product, before and after pictures and quotes from the many celebrities who have converted to our showers. Along with this, like I mentioned above, we will have an informational page where users can read more about our shower.

The video explained above also helps achieve our last goal: to promote our product. With this, we are going to display many customer reviews and user experience stories. Anyone is free to write a review. We have many stories from celebrities that we are eager to share on our website – in hopes that celebrity influence may increase sales. We also are planning on implementing a 3D customization page that can be used to give a customer the freedom to choose size, features and how they want the shower to look.

To accomplish the look of innovation, we will use a blue, black and silver color scheme and simple type.

Overall, we want this site to be clear and informational. We want users to leave the site with substantial knowledge about and interest in our luxury shower. If people exit the site with these two things, we will make an impact in the bathroom industry and produce valuable sales.

The product is essentially an EZ Pass for gas, or as I would like to call it, “Fill Me Up.”  This product is supposed to make getting gas faster and easier so the driver does not have to get out of the car to fill up their tank.  This will be achieved by having a little plastic bar in the car window, like an EZ Pass, so when the driver pulls up to the gas station a machine scans it, allowing the driver to pay that quickly.  The website would help with this because each plastic bar would have an account that would be accessible on the website. Basically, when a person buys a “Fill Me Up” bar, they have to make an account that will keep track of how much they are spending, where the best gas prices are, ect..  There has also been talk about having an app that links up to the device that will make user accounts even more accessible.

Strategy:

GOAL: educate customers about the fees involved and how the earn rewards.

GOAL: the site should be fast and easy to use

GOAL: brand

In order to make money off this product there will be a small fee tagged on to the end of each use, a onetime fee with the purchase of the product. To keep the consumers happy, there will be rewards after a certain amount of money is spent on gas, whether that is a free tank of gas or percentage off.

SCOPE

The website include what “Fill Me Up” does, how to order, shopping cart, about the rewards system, what gas stations offer the product, login/account page, and debit/credit card payment options. The whole point of this product is to make getting gas fast and easy so the plan is for that to carry over to the website and possible app as well. The login/account page would consist of a user name and password.  Once logged in the user would have access to where and when they got gas, the electronic receipt, and how many reward points they have. To sign up for the account the user would have to create a user name and password, put in their car information (including license plate), address, and credit/debit card number.  This way the radar can detect the right car with the matching bar and bill the user straight away.

“Fill Me Up” covers the payment process at the gas station but there is still the problem of getting that gas into the car.  This would be solved by going back to the old gas attendants that would fill the cars up for the driver.  This could easily increase more jobs and solve that getting out of the car problem.  With the company also offering jobs, applications would be another feature on the website so make it easy to apply to be a “Fill Me Up” attendant.

What do you as the creator of your product hope to achieve through the creation of web site? As the creator of Fuel-Pass we hope to achieve giving our customers the most pleasant experience possible through our website. We want to give them technology for usability and tracking, this will allow them to be able to find near by gas stations and the prices they are selling their gas for. We hope to develop an app that will allow the user to receive notifications through the app, e-mail or text message on their left over balance and their electronic receipt. We will achieve getting money from this product by recording their habits, where they get gas and the price of gas, along with may other things to sell to gas companies and other related companies. Through this product we hope to give a reward to the drivers using our product, like the drivers who use EZ-Pass, and give them a percentage off on gas or money back. We will be selling our product for $5, which is a one-time fee, but we will make a percentage off of what they spend on gas, through an additional fee that is rather small. And what will your site’s users hope to get from visiting? Through our site, our customers will be able to gain knowledge of out product and company; find out what is does and how it can save them time and money. We want to provide them with a how to order the device, along with a shopping cart to save the device in as they continue to browse. We will be able to provide them with a login account to add money to their device, add a credit/debit card, check and cash in rewards, and check out their e-receipts. The reward system will equal up to dollar amounts that they can let accumulate and cash in for money of gas. We want to offer many other services within this product. We want to be able to allow the customer to see locations of gas stations and the prices. When they are on their account page or ordering page we want to have them know their information is safe, by having it encrypted.

The scope of our product is to allow the customer a safe, fast and convenient way to purchase our product. When they purchase the product, they will be able to save it into their shopping cart and when they want to check out it will be encrypted. We want to offer our customers the ability to safely pay for their device and to store their debit/credit card to pay for gas or be able to use their cards to put money onto their device. We want to have the customer be able to click through our website and view our company, how we started and how we came up with our products. We want to have them be able to go to a contact us page to call, e-mail and live chat with someone to take care of any questions or problems they might run into. We want our customers to have a well educated and stress free experience. Our customers are our main concern so we want to allow them to be able to use this product online and on the go, and a login that offers the same experience on the go as the same as being at home is what we are trying to gain with a seamless integration between our website and app.