Car Rental Software - Beauty and the speed

In information technology, the user interface (UI) is everything designed into an information device with which a human being may interact. The user interface can arguably include the total "user experience," which may include the aesthetic appearance of the device, response time, and the content that is presented to the user within the context of the user interface. At the same time User interface is a balancing act between technical functions and visual cues in the effort to optimize the way that the user interacts with the system.

Being a web based Car rental software, Carhire Manager Web was initially designed with a traditional web UI. At some point we decided to enhance the look and feel of the software , simply speaking,  to add more beauty.

The aesthetic appearance, Ease of use and speed were our main important criteria while trying to revamp the UI Carhire Manager Web. We found out that by making effective use of the jQuery technology we could provide an appearance which every windows user finds quite familiar. Actually we decided to give a "desktop" look to our Web application and we did it.The user can pin and unpin icons on the screen, organize the icons on the desktop , use windows like start button e.t.c. Yes it looks like desktop but its Web 100 %.

Apart from the appearance, speed is without any doubt a very important part of a UI. The new UI was not only beautiful but also also faster than the previous UI. As we were not fully satisfied with the performance change we tried to enhance performance even more. After all,  better performance means higher productivity. After a number of technical enhancements and tweaks in the software, we managed to reduce loading times and increased the overall performance essentially. Thus the outcome of our effort: Beauty and Speed is what the users  of our car rental system enjoy today.

Structure of the car rental system

A modern car rental system has no choice but to cover all the different aspects that a car rental operation involves. B2C and B2B interactions, websites, CRM, office users, mobile users, system integration (see previous post about XML interface) aspects have to be taken into consideration when building a car rental system. Its not just about developing a piece of killer car rental software adopting the latest technology but building a complete system that can accommodate the various players within the system.

Office users can manage their every day operations, through the Back office and depending on the role of each user the system allows an appropriate set of operations. Managers, fleet managers, branch managers, Counter Staff, maintenance staff, accountants or anybody else within the system, each one of them may access the information of their interest. Mobile users can manage their activities while being on the move away from the office. Website visitors can submit their car rental reservations into Carhire Manager Web, pay online and interact with the system directly through the pages of the integrated website.

Small agents can also enter their bookings into the system through the integrated agent portal while the bigger ones and the big internet car rental brokers can do it by using the XML interface. The XML interface may also be used in order to connect any other system to Carhire Manager Web. A car rental software must include all necessary CRM functionality in order to manage the interactions between the business and the car rental client. Sending newsletters, evaluation forms, notifications by email or SMS to clients but also providing the users of the system with all necessary client statistics is without any doubt a very important part of a car rental system.