Designing A Real Estate Web Site

Your assignment for Class 2 is to design a web site for a small real estate agent's business in Montgomery County.

The agent offers classes for real estate certification in Maryland, so he needs some "interactive" features on his web site. The agent wants:

  1. A ten-page web site;
  2. A calendar of classes which has to be dynamically updated as new classes are listed;
  3. Graphics which meet copyright standards;
  4. A secure shopping cart for class registrations;
  5. Local hosting by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Rockville, MD;
  6. An estimate from you on the cost of designing and delivering this web site.

This assignment will require you to do the following, among other things:

  1. Find and price prepackaged "dynamic" web calendars which will permit the real estate agent or webmaster to update or change the calendar as classes are added, changed, or cancelled;
  2. Find a secure shopping cart package which will permit listings of classes and permit students to register for those classes.
    1. Note - this may or may not be "synchronized" with the web calendar. Most likely, you would click on a calendar entry to get to the secure shopping cart page.
    2. Estimate the cost of designing a secure shopping cart if you are not purchasing a shopping cart package but design the shopping cart yourself.
  3. Graphics Packages. Research and price stock photo packages on the web which might meet the broker's needs.
  4. Find pre-packaged XML-based formats for any of the above items.
  5. Research hosting services in Rockville or Montgomery County, and provide pricing.
  6. Research web designer "going rates" for web packages.
    1. Local Designers?
    2. Regional Designers?
    3. International designers -- "off-shoring" the web work to India or China?
  7. Estimate the costs of design;
    1. Full-scale design by you;
    2. Cost to modify packages purchased "off the shelf," i.e.
      1. Cost to modify a pre-packaged calendar to fit the client's needs;
      2. Cost to modify and install a pre-packaged "Shopping Cart" with the client's logos, banners, and brands;
      3. Install and upload data to the calendar, if the client isn't going to do this;
      4. Cost to train the client & key personnel (administrative aide) who will maintain the site.
      5. Cost to maintain the site if you're going to be the one maintaining the site.

You are encouraged and permitted to work in teams on this assignment if you choose. We will share and list findings in Class 2 -- but we will be asking for everyone's participation, so don't expect others to do the assignment while you cruise in Class 2.

Storyboard Your Own Site

Prepare a one-page storyboard of your own web site's home page, based on the principles discussed in Class 1. You can do your storyboard by hand or by the Word.docx format we developed in class.