rp-1 / project_5

Udacity front-end nano project 5

##UDACITY FRONT END NANODEGREE PROJECT 5 ###Find Your Fire: The hottest hot chicken in Nashville

###Purpose: This project is designed to showcase several web technologies all working together to provide users with a useful, enjoyable experience.

###What it does: This single page web app allows you to browse a map or list of Hot Chicken joints in Nashville.

Hot Chicken is a relatively new phenomenon in the culinary world. And it was invented right here in the Music City. You can read blog posts, search Google, etc for Hot Chicken, but there is currently no easy way to get a quick, throrough snapshot of what your options are for Hot Chicken in Nashville. Find your Fire fills that void.

###How to use it: Simply load the index.html file in your browser or visit http://richpaschall.com/dev/hotchicken/

###UX Strategy: The web page is designed to deliver maximum utility for users of all devices. So we have kept graphics and design elements to a minimum.

However, the page should be appealing, so we're using a distinctive color palette and a custom Google Maps color scheme for an appealing, branded look and identity.

The key elements should be quickly and easily obtained. Key elements are defined as:

• Restaurant name
• A picture of the restaurant
• Restaurant address
• Restaurant phone number
• Yelp rating of restaurant (number of stars, total reviews)
• A snippet from the latest Yelp review
• A link to yelp for the restaurant page on Yelp

We have used media queries to determine what should be shown on what device. For smaller devices, particularly mobile, we have further simplified the page by removing the list (via CSS) of restaurants. This greatly increases the utility of the app without any signficiant loss of functionality. I can still search by restaurant name interactively. I can still directly select restaurants on the map.

###Marketing: In order to make the page "pay for itself" (and hopefully then some), we will investigate the possiblity of adding sponsored restaurants. Instead of just a banner ad or something that would detract from the user experience, we might consider highlighting sponsored restaurants in the list, perhaps with a blurb or "daily specials" link beneath the restaurant name.

To attract users to the site, we will do the usual social and blog posts. We should make sure that any article that talks about Hot Chicken has a link to Find Your Fire. Additionally, we can develop our own ads that create interest and inpire use of the site.

A sample banner headline: "That's not your mouth watering. It's your tastebuds sweating." Then we bring up site info "Who has the hottest hot chicken in Nashville? Find out at FindYourFire.com"

###Technologies used: Find Your Fire uses the following technologies:

• Google maps api to show on a map all the restaurants that serve Hot Chicken
• Knockout.js for under-the-hood data manipulation (ViewModel)
• Yelp api for retrieving ratings, reviews and info about any given restaurant
• JSON for the actual data (Model)
• JQUERY for various javascript routines
• Javascript
• Css
• Html