Tesco Cars
Sadly, Tesco have decided to close down Tesco Cars as of 3rd April 2012 as they "cannot offer customers a satisfactory range of vehicles and as a result, have decided it is right to close the business." We thoroughly enjoyed working with such a great team and wish them all well.
The Big Launch
TescoCars.com launched in early April 2011 to the huge interest of the Media and the second-hand cars sales industry.
Client quote:
It's been such a positive experience working with DabApps, they are now the development agency of choice for Tesco Cars.
Karen Rotberg, Director, Tesco Cars
DabApps was the development company hired to work as part of a multi-agency team to design and build the web site and high end search application which allows Tesco's customers to search and buy ex-lease cars online using Lifestyle as well as conventional criteria.
What We Did
- Design and UX consultancy >
- Frontend engineering >
- Django application development >
- Integration with Tesco Cars stock APIs, vehicle specification databases and email gateway
“User experience is seamless and the site has an air of helpfulness and reassurance.”
The Project
Client quote:
DabApps have played a pivotal role in bringing this multi-agency project to fruition, with their clear understanding of the business objectives and high level of technical expertise.
Neil Pattinson, IT Manager, Tesco Cars
DabApps were on board right from the start with the development of an early prototype of the site. This allowed us to fully explore with the client the business model and buyer experience. Building on these early insights and establishing a great working relationship with Tesco Cars we continued on to the full design and build.
Working from visuals provided by a design and marketing agency, DabApps engineered the frontend web site and search application to the high specifications and standards required by Tesco, with high priority given to both usability and accessibility.
The site was built using Django, DabApps' development framework of choice and one keenly adopted by Tesco Cars to fit with their Java-based back office sales tool.
Lifestyle Search App
Client quote:
We wanted to provide our customers with a user-friendly, and meaningful 'Lifestyle' search for a car to suit their needs. DabApps applied their impressive technical expertise to turn our ideas into reality.
Karen Rotberg, Director, Tesco Cars
The Lifestyle Search system is designed to recommend vehicles to users based on a simple set of questions about their habits and preferences. Creating it involved integration of several separate systems to create a fun, engaging user experience based on low-level vehicle technical specifications and performance data.
DabApps collaborated with several members of the Tesco Cars team to build a Lifestyle Search. An expert on the CAP vehicle database identified the information we needed to use, and we designed the complex queries needed to extract it, as well as the code to allow the Django application to communicate with the Microsoft SQL Server that houses it. We used the jQuery UI JavaScript library to build a slick user interface, ensuring that it remained accessible to visitors with JavaScript disabled.
