Coffee Break

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Inspiration 💡

We were inspired by the prompt about improving socialization among coworkers in a working-from-home environment. Socializing when work was still in person came much more naturally, such as getting coffee or lunch with coworkers to network or just to have a friendly chat. While working from home, there isn’t much to do during breaks, and no cafeteria or food court to physically go to with coworkers. Without these small social interactions, work life can become rather stagnant.

Coffee Break is an app meant to simulate this particular experience of work life to lead to a more interactive work environment and to give people a chance to connect with members of their company they may not have gotten a chance to talk to otherwise. It is also a practical app outside of the context of the pandemic, because it can let coworkers in large companies connect with each other, whereas typically people barely get the opportunity to interact and socialize with those outside of their department.

What it does 📖

Coffee Break is an app designed for Android that matches up random coworkers in a company to chat during their breaks. Users can create a profile, which includes information about them such as a biography and personal interest tags. When a user is on break from work, they can mark themselves as online on the app. The app then matches them up with other coworkers from their company, with an algorithm taking into account if any two individuals have marked any common personal interests, to make the conversation more engaging for both parties. The two coworkers get a chance to chat for a brief period of time (around 15 minutes).

How we built it 🖥

We coded the app in Java, XML, and HTML for the most part, using Android Studio. We used Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to create design elements.

Challenges we ran into 💪

We had only recently started coding in Android Studio, so it was still pretty difficult to navigate, especially with the design elements we didn’t have much experience with. The learning curve was a little steep, but with time we were able to create the app we had envisioned.

Accomplishments that we're proud of 🌟

We’re proud that we were able to design a fully functional app with creative features and design elements in such a short amount of time, especially considering that none of us had extensive experience with the software we used. We were able to come up with and delegate tasks efficiently, which led to a productive use of our time.

What we learned 📒

We learned a lot more about working in Android Studio, especially while designing and implementing relatively advanced features. We learned about the importance of keeping a project repository organized, especially when working with multiple people.

What's next for Coffee Break ☕️

We do want to keep the purpose of the app very clear and simple, so we are not planning on implementing any major changes. However, we have had ideas for extra features that may make the app more interesting, such as an option for audio/video calling in addition to text messaging.