Without the need of signing in, opening several applications, finding music, or downloading software, one can begin their study session right away. With the quick click of a link, students can study anywhere anytime in short focused sessions. During their 5 minute break, instead of checking social media or falling asleep, they can make use of the features on the app. One can choose to learn about fun facts, listen to a pre-made Spotify playlist, read motivational quotes, receive 5-minute tasks suggestions, or do all of them!
For students, there has always been a constant struggle to stay motivated and organized. This problem has been amplified by the pandemic and the subsequent switch to online learning. During this time, we all have been searching for ways to be more productive, but many apps are often extravagant and overwhelming. For this reason, we decided to create a compact and user-friendly web application with a very simple goal - to create better study sessions using the Pomodoro Technique.
In the early stages, we used Figma to prototype/make a wireframe of the basic layout of our website. The prototype included the background design, a color scheme, and different sections for the website elements that would be later added in with code. Next, we figured out the software needed for our website. To make our website fun and engaging, we decided to use incorporate a lot of APIs, and stylize it to be just as aesthetic as our Figma template. We then used Javascript to add user interaction (things such as theme selection, animations, and audio responses).
We faced many challenges. Of these challenges was learning about different APIs and Javascript in such a short time period. A considerable amount of time was spent understanding how to code what we had in mind. In addition, there was difficulty in getting the more complex elements to work. As a result, we had to frequently debug any small errors made along the way.
We are really proud of how we were able to overcome all our challenges, eventually getting the website and all its different elements to work, despite having almost no prior experience with development and coding. The amazing designs and elements included in our website will always have a space reserved in our hearts.
We were able to learn so much about web development in the past 36 hours. We learned how to code in Javascript to add the perfect touch of user interactivity to our website, get audio to work, and how to use APIs to do lots of cool stuff.
We plan to add a lot more useful features to our application. Right now, we have in mind the following: mini-games, a drawing pad, and the ability to restrict access to certain domains during study sessions. We also would like to further improve the interface (ex. ability to resize smoothly), and allow connections to things such as google drive or a calendar.