HELP please... website personalization [Archive]

rcoomes

11-16-2003, 01:27 PM

I would appreciate any help that anyone can provide....

I am working on a school project for Indiana University Southeast for a MIS class. The assignment was to find something in our current employment that could benefit business from IT. I proposed that the site of my company, www.runakogallery.com, change the layout so that visitors to the website could search the site by interests and then, when they returned, the site creates a personalized page that shows items they have viewed in the past like a shopping cart. Also, the site will prompt them to visit new items that have been posted since their last visit that they might be interested. Something like Amazon.com's site. I am not looking to do this in reality, but I need information on how it could be done.

toicontien

11-16-2003, 07:33 PM

At the time I wrote this, the link you provided wasn't working. Some of what I wrote may not directly apply to your site, but the basic philosophy will.

There should be two implementations for you design. The first is the default look of a site, which first time visitors would see. The second is the customized version.

Default Design

Marking Items as New:

• Use JavaScript on the client side to read the date and time, then dynamically write NEW! images beside content that was added recently. You'll have to provide the script with the date that things were last added on your end.

• You might be able to detect the client's date and time via server-side variables. In this case you'll need a server-side scripting language like PHP, ASP, or JSP. Then in the script, write the NEW! images next to content that was recently added to the site.

In both cases, you'll have to account for users in different time zones around the world. You'll also have to test the users' date and time against the last time that content was added to the site. Then any content added before that date wouldn't get a NEW! image by it.

For example: You add a product on Wednesday, Dec 3 2003. Any content added that date would get NEW! images by it. Any content added before that date would not. You might want to add a couple-day grace period when content gets added. Items added on Dec 3 would get NEW! images beside it, as well as content added Dec 2 and 1.

You'll need a sign-up area where users can register, and a database to accompany the new users. There should also be an area where users can log in.

Another way might be to use cookies to keep track of their custom info. This isn't the best way because people can turn off their cookies or may browse your site from a different computer or browser.

Custom Design

This will appear after customers log in. Their custom data should be loaded from the profile created when they registered and browsed the site. You could keep track of what date and time they last visited the site and dynamically write in NEW! images next to content that was added since their last visit.

In their shopping cart, you could assign all products a certain category then dynamically write "recommendations" of other products that fell into the same category that they've purchased from, or even from related categories.

Say a customer buys a grill. A related category could be grill accessories, like: Spatulas, meat forks, charcoal, smoke products (hickory wood or apple wood to smoke meat with). After they've purchased the grill, or added the grill to their shopping cart, a recommendations area could appear at the bottom of the page with links to buy products related to grills.

Customers who bought this also bought:

You could also do a little data mining before sending them a product page and tell people what other customers, who bought the product currently being displayed, also bought. Like customers who bought this grill also bought lawn chairs and charcoal. This is very much like what Amazon.com is doing.