Mercedes-Benz
Every year, Mercedes-Benz adds new cars to their lineup. Every year, these new luxury vehicles need to be added to their website. One feature of mbusa.com is their BTO (Build-To-Order) tool, where a prospective customer can choose any one of their models, customize it however they like, find out an estimated cost, and be directed to their nearest Mercedes-Benz dealership. I was brought on board to the Mercedes-Benz team at Critical Mass specifically to add all of the new 2009 models to the BTO tool.
While this task sounds simple enough, there is an absolute TON of legwork that goes into this every year. Each model has dozens of different configuration choices, from exterior and interior color choices to additional options and packages. No project that I’ve ever worked on has required such an incredible attention to detail, as building all of the logic behind this system involves following Mercedes-Benz’s documentation to the absolute most granular level of detail. Each models’ configuration options data is stored in mammoth XML files, which also required the careful building and organization of a file structure to store the hundreds of images required for the system to operate.
At the end of the day, to be able to look at the website for one of the world’s premium luxury car brands and say “I did this” is immensely rewarding.
- Role: Web Developer
- Technologies used: XHTML, CSS, XML, PHP, MySQL, Photoshop CS3, ATG Dynamo, IBM Websphere, Apache.
- Duties:
- File organization
- XML schema design
- Image library/gallery building
- Updates to other sections of mbusa.com and individual local dealership websites as needed