E-Commerce Shopping System for Mobile Viewers

screenshot-mobile
Title: E-Commerce Shopping System for Mobile Viewers
Duration: One Semester
Responsible TA: Jiyong Zhang
Goals: Design and implement a prototype e-commerce shopping website for mobile users.
Keywords: e-commerce, interaction design, plugin development
Abstract:

Over the past few years there has been an exponential growth both in the number of mobile users. Mobile internet enables users to access online information from mobile devices. An upcoming trend for mobile users would be to buy products directly through their mobiles from anywhere, at anytime.

In this project we intend to build or adapt a shopping website for mobile users. The system can be developed based on some existing open source shopping systems such as osCommerce (http://www.oscommerce.com/). We need to design a module so that the interface can be outputted adequately on mobile devices. This can be done by detecting the connecting device and modifying the stylesheets accordingly, or can also be based on the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and creation of wml pages. (The WAP is the world standard for the presentation and delivery of wireless information and telephony services on mobile phones and other wireless terminals, but more and more phones just integrate a light-version web browser). The challenge would be to design interfaces that can be conveniently used by mobile users, and to provide as a plugin/module for an existing and popular shopping system.

Project Results:
  • Implementation of a prototype mobile shopping system;
  • Usability issues of the mobile shopping system;
  • Publication of a plugin
  • Results analysis and report.
Required Skills:
  • Previous experience of website development
  • CSS / PHP / Mysql
  • Development experience with CMS systems is welcome (optional)