Store Locator Using the Google Maps API

Timeline: 2006-2007

My Role: Sole designer and full-stack developer working directly with Whole Food Market’s marketing department.

Significance: The first major project for a corporation where I was responsible for all design and development from beginning to end.

Motivation

We needed an easy way for customers to locate and get directions to nearby Whole Food Market stores. Also, at the time, management of store information was performed by manually editing the HTML of each store’s page, so we needed an easier way of managing the store information.

Google Maps API

At the time MapQuest was the major online web mapping service. Although Google Maps was brand new it met our needs better.

The XML containing the store information was parsed using GXml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<markers>
        <marker>
                <name>Central</name>
                <addr1>525 N Lamar Blvd</addr1>
                <city>Austin</city>
                <state>Texas</state>
                <code>78703</code>
                <cntry>USA</cntry>
                <lat>30.270641</lat>
                <lng>-97.754271</lng>
                <phone>512.476.1206</phone>
                <fax>512.476.5704</fax>
                <details>Store hours:\n8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. seven days a week</details>
                <url>http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com</url>
        </marker>
</markers>