Thursday 21 March 2013

A Dream App for Vintage Follie

A new app that could be created for my other blog, Vintage Follie, would be to create an app that would allow customers to book themselves into a craft workshop. Vintage Follie runs local vintage craft workshops in the South East of London and would like to make it simpler for customers to be able to book onto a workshop, by scrolling through the list of workshops that are available. They will then be able to choose the date that they want to attend to and book a space. Once they have booked a space they can find out the location of the workshop and directions of how to get there.

Thursday 28 February 2013

Design your own Mash-up



A mash-up is combining data/presentation/functionality from different sources and placing them together. To come up with my own mash-up I wanted to come up with an idea that interested me in my own hobby interests, therefore I will be using Hobbycraft once again in my example.
 Recently Hobbycraft have been hosting workshops in their stores by local crafters and artists. Hobbycraft is dispersed nationwide and therefore many different workshops will be taking place all over the UK. To help customers find out where these workshops are being held I propose to make a mash-up with Google maps and Hobbycraft workshops. Customers will be able to view the map and click on workshops that are happening in their local area. Each workshop will also link to the crafter's blog or website which will go on to provide more information about the workshop and to book a space.

What data would be needed?
  • Location Data for Hobbycraft store Locations
  • Schedules for workshops happening at Hobbycraft stores
  • Blog URL data for crafters/artists hosting the workshops 
Is that data currently available?
Store location data is already available via the Hobbycraft website however information regarding workshops that are taking place within the stores is not available online currently. Also URL addresses for the crafters blogs would need to be captured to link the workshops with the blogs/websites.

How would you present the data?
The data would be presented on a specific tab on the Hobbycraft website which lists the workshops. A google map will be placed on the website and small pictures of the items that are going to be made will be placed over the location areas where there are Hobbycraft stores and the workshop is taking place. This will be updated on a weekly and daily basis to update the map with new workshops.

Target Audience
Any crafters/artists/customers of Hobbycraft stores