Abstract

1. Abstract Matt Geyer Tim Nelson Jeremy OlsonInstructor: Sergiu Dascalu, PhD External Advisor: Richard Kelley CS 426/CPE 426 Senior Project, Spring 2012 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno A garage sale listings web application www.emergentmisbehavior.com/gsales GSales is a web-based Microsoft .NET application that allows users to easily and conveniently list their garage sales and find garage sales in their area. For users who are listing sales, there are options to write a short description of their sale, indicate the types of items being sold using tags, as well as confirm that Bing maps has correctly located the address of the sale. Users can search for listings by various criteria, with the results displayed in a user friendly fashion, which includes both a list of sales and the ability to map the sale on the same screen. The application is supported by a back-end database for storing and querying sales. We hope that we have created the #1 application for listing and finding garage sales and have finally established a single place for anyone listing or searching garage sales to go. Main Goals Architecture The main goal of this project has been to develop a functionally robust and easy to use web application for hosting garage sales. The application is useful and intuitive, filling a void that other websites have left. We designed it to fit all of the needs of anyone hosting or looking for a garage sale. With a multitude of features, a production-level architecture, and a cutting edge user interface, this project has been designed to become the #1 location on the internet for posting and finding garage and estate sales. Future development will continue and this project will generate income using non-invasive ads in the mobile and web applications. The architecture for this website implements a three-tier, unit tested system using a diverse collection of languages and libraries including C#, JavaScript, jQuery, SQL, Lucene.NET, Bing Maps, MongoDB, and NUnit. We strived to create production level code and a logging system using MongoDB to allow simple debugging for continued professional development. User Interface The user interface has been designed in such a way that the user does not suffer from information overload and is presented with only the essentials: a search bar, a settings button, an additional button to add a sale, and an advanced search option. The goal was to minimize the amount of extraneous textual data on screen to avoid the need of deciphering useful information. To accomplish this, we have incorporated commonly used symbols that are associated with common functionality: a gear shape to symbolize “settings”, a spy glass for “search”, etc. On initial visit, the user is presented with Figure 1, which quickly explains to users how to get started As can be seen in Figure 2, the results of a search are returned in a list format. Clicking a listed sale opens a quick view of the most pertinent details for that sale. The placement of a marker for that sale on a map can also be toggled. Further information for the sale can be accessed from the quick view as well. Features The core functionality provides a simple means for anyone to list and attract attention to their garage sale. Along those same lines, it also provides an effective means for people to find garage sales in their location relevant to search criteria based on terms and tags that they specify. Searches can be done by geolocation, terms in the description of the sale, tags used by the seller, the city, the state, or even a date range. Every sale has its own display page where other users, as well as anonymous users, can post comments about the sale. This feedback system could provide other potential buyers with pertinent information regarding a specific sale, such as “This yard sale doesn’t exist at this location,” or “There are still lots of good things to buy at this sale,” or a plethora of similar comments. Alongside the core functionality, there is a multitude of extra features. The web application allows users to register for an account, which allows them to customize their search results as well as receive emails whenever sales in their area are posted with the criteria that they are looking for. The user account also allows users to edit or delete sales that they post. However, users are not required to create a user account to list a sale. After a user has added a sale, at the sale confirmation page, the user is given a unique string that they can enter on the sale’s page to allow the user to edit or delete their sale without having to create a user account. The mentality motivating this feature is that the lower the barrier of use, the larger and (hopefully) more quickly the user base for gSales will develop. We also have a comprehensive statistics package that analyzes the success of sales based on certain criteria including number of visitors and comment rankings, and the correlation between their success and the use of certain terms and tags. Those are also correlated with the success of terms based off of a given geographical region. This allows us to provide useful data and statistics to those who are selling. For instance, if successful sales in your area all have antique items, our application will tell you that adding antique items to your sale will dramatically increase the number of visitors to your garage sale. Figure 1 – The welcome screen for gSales. Quickly explains how users can get started. Future Work • GSales is not only our senior project, but a business venture we have every intention of continuing. There is huge potential for growth with this application, and our plans include: • Adding the ability to create a favorite sales list for registered users, so that users can save sales they wish to visit. • Sending notices (via email or possibly text messaging) to remind users that a sale they have saved takes place soon. • The development of mobile applications for major platforms, such as iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7. • A plan for monetizing both the web and mobile applications in a non-intrusive and simple fashion using ads. Conclusion GSales was conceived and developed out of necessity. We needed to find some garage sales, and we only wanted to visit garage sales that we knew would be selling the items we were seeking. Unfortunately, there has not been a utility to provide us with what we wanted, until now. GSales provides users with the simplest, most effective solution for posting and finding garage sales by presenting relevant data from a powerful back-end in an appealing, web-based graphical user interface. Figure 2 – Results from a search based on the word “sale”. Results are returned as a list on the left, with the sale locations marked on the Bing™ map on the right. This project was developed in Spring 2012 as part of the course CS 426/CPE 426 Senior Projects.