Sunday, February 10, 2008

Now in Beta Testing: www.cincinnatiparking.info

Last Spring I had an idea to make a website for finding a monthly parking garage downtown. I started working on it last Spring, but then kinda slacked off for a while.

Recently I've been going back in and tweaking some of the things and trying to get it ready to "show off".

The URL is http://www.cincinnatiparking.info/



Pretty much all the ideas I originally had are there. Now, I'm just trying to figure out how to make it better.

#1 - The data is published as a PDF by DCI and so I basically have to manually update the garages. And it only comes out quarterly. I'm trying to think of a way to make this more efficient and more accurate. Ideas here would range from getting the data in a better format directly from DCI or embedding my map directly into their site (by selling it to them), to getting "users" to somehow submit up-to-date data whether "users" means garage owners or parkers or volunteers.

#2 - It is not pretty. I have been learning the ins and outs of CSS and have got it into a basically usable style, but it could be better. Also, I have not tested it on a huge range of browsers and screen resolutions.

#3 - The main feature is the map. The other feature is the "Search" table. Maybe it would be nice to build other ways of querying the database, like search by distance or price range, etc.

Check it out and tell me what you think. I am open to any suggestions and I need new ideas to work on.

Thanks.