Choosing frameworks and managing expectations
Assignment 3 was another rush for time :(
We laid out quite a large set of functionalities that originally planned to implement from the start, but ended up cutting so many features in the interest of time. Even with that, our time was mostly spent on getting functionality up before being able to refine the smaller details (which, after the UX reviews last night, got me thinking about).
One thing that i've learnt through this is: given we have a limited amount of time, we should always be realistic about what we could handle. Choose one good feature and implement it really well. One thing that i feel unfortunate about is that, I feel that the above really only applies depending on the idea of the app (and the context that it is in). Trying to think of an idea for an app is excruciating, and trying to find a niche in the market that your app bases its idea on is even more so. I feel that while the app that we decide to build should definitely work towards a something that differentiates ourselves from the market, the app should still provide basic and a wholesome package to the user (which i find although very do-able, can be quite time consuming to implement within the time frame we are given).
For example, our app was one that allowed users to journal their travels by creating something almost similar to a "blog" like post, but instead partitioning it into individual sections (snippets). We also wanted other users to be able to plan their travels by getting inspiration from others, and to "like"/bookmark the individual snippets that other users. We wanted to pitch this idea of customizability of their travel plans, and i realize now that this feature is one that is heavily dependent/founded upon the basic package of functionalities that we should to provide to give a more wholesome experience.
The basic package that i am talking about here would be to create a post, to create individual snippets, to view other's posts as well as to like individual posts. In addition, other things that we should have included in our app. Firstly, would be to allow the user to create the post as a draft before eventually choosing to post it out to the public. Secondly, creating a proper page for users to handle and manage their posts/drafts. And finally, weed out all the subtle problems in terms of UX for these functionalities. I feel that these are the basics that we should at least provide before we can start at talking about our niche. On top of all of that, we would also have to implement our own spin onto it, and validate the UX.
We chose Ionic as our framework, and while it gave us some really nice styling to the app, we eventually found that a lot of things didn't work (especially when we had to add in service workers). Being personally on the backend of the app (the server that provides apis), i didn't have to do the nasty stuff on the frontend, but i could tell from the frustration of my front-end teammates.
TL;DR
Choose a framework that is well suited for the nature of the project, because when you find out it doesn't work, there won't be time to change it. Choose an idea that is feasible within the time-frame of your work, and one that isn't heavily dependent on other basic functionalities. Unfortunately, this all seems easier said than done.
We laid out quite a large set of functionalities that originally planned to implement from the start, but ended up cutting so many features in the interest of time. Even with that, our time was mostly spent on getting functionality up before being able to refine the smaller details (which, after the UX reviews last night, got me thinking about).
One thing that i've learnt through this is: given we have a limited amount of time, we should always be realistic about what we could handle. Choose one good feature and implement it really well. One thing that i feel unfortunate about is that, I feel that the above really only applies depending on the idea of the app (and the context that it is in). Trying to think of an idea for an app is excruciating, and trying to find a niche in the market that your app bases its idea on is even more so. I feel that while the app that we decide to build should definitely work towards a something that differentiates ourselves from the market, the app should still provide basic and a wholesome package to the user (which i find although very do-able, can be quite time consuming to implement within the time frame we are given).
For example, our app was one that allowed users to journal their travels by creating something almost similar to a "blog" like post, but instead partitioning it into individual sections (snippets). We also wanted other users to be able to plan their travels by getting inspiration from others, and to "like"/bookmark the individual snippets that other users. We wanted to pitch this idea of customizability of their travel plans, and i realize now that this feature is one that is heavily dependent/founded upon the basic package of functionalities that we should to provide to give a more wholesome experience.
The basic package that i am talking about here would be to create a post, to create individual snippets, to view other's posts as well as to like individual posts. In addition, other things that we should have included in our app. Firstly, would be to allow the user to create the post as a draft before eventually choosing to post it out to the public. Secondly, creating a proper page for users to handle and manage their posts/drafts. And finally, weed out all the subtle problems in terms of UX for these functionalities. I feel that these are the basics that we should at least provide before we can start at talking about our niche. On top of all of that, we would also have to implement our own spin onto it, and validate the UX.
We chose Ionic as our framework, and while it gave us some really nice styling to the app, we eventually found that a lot of things didn't work (especially when we had to add in service workers). Being personally on the backend of the app (the server that provides apis), i didn't have to do the nasty stuff on the frontend, but i could tell from the frustration of my front-end teammates.
TL;DR
Choose a framework that is well suited for the nature of the project, because when you find out it doesn't work, there won't be time to change it. Choose an idea that is feasible within the time-frame of your work, and one that isn't heavily dependent on other basic functionalities. Unfortunately, this all seems easier said than done.
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