Flourish

Inspiration, What it does

Upon hearing the theme of the hackathon and being inspired by "Planting the Seed," I believe it would be valuable to incorporate related features into a financial tracking web. The act of watering a plant reminded me of a piggy bank that gradually fills up when coins are inserted, akin to a moment of satisfaction when a potted plant blooms. Unlike traditional savings accounts that require consistently accumulating large sums of money, I believe users would find it less burdensome to round up small amounts with each payment. They can continuously contribute toward a predetermined goal, eventually witnessing their virtual plant blooming, which would provide a sense of accomplishment. This feature would automate the savings process for users, making it easy and user-friendly. The accumulated funds could be either returned to the user's account or donated to a charity organization, based solely on the user's preference. Our team aims for users to experience the joy of nurturing their own virtual plants, fostering connections with various charitable organizations, and reaping the associated benefits.

How we built it

Our team consists of two developers and two UX designers. Thus, we divided our work and took charge of each process that we felt confident about. Designers mainly worked on ideation and project management, and developers worked on the implementation.

Challenges we ran into

There were lots of challenges. First of all, determining what direction to take since there wasn't a specific theme or prompt was challenging because there wasn't a specific theme or prompt given. Also, since our team is cross-functional, we had difficulty handing over resources and working simultaneously. For example, due to limited time, it was hard to wait until designers make high-fidelity prototypes and proceed with the implementation after then. The tight timelines also made developers feel burdened to develop a full-stack web application. The development process involves multiple stages, from designing the architecture to developing the front-end and back-end, testing, and deployment. Even with a well-defined project plan, there are various challenges and bugs that developers may encounter during the process. Especially with tight deadlines, we didn’t have enough time to finish fully functional applications. Thus, our team decided to finish our client-side first and keep working on the server side as one of the next steps.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are really proud of our accomplishments during this hackathon, especially considering that it was the first hackathon for all of us. Even though there wasn't a specific theme or prompt, we persevered and were able to achieve our project's goal, which was a significant accomplishment for us. Also, when we encountered challenges during the process, such as building a website with languages that we had not used before, we dedicated a lot of time and effort to ensure that our website was exactly what we wanted it to be. Looking back, we feel that we have grown both individually and as a team through this experience. We are very proud of what we were able to achieve and the knowledge we have gained along the way.

What we learned

During the hackathon, we gained valuable experiences and learned many new skills. One of the most significant skills we developed was our problem-solving ability, as we had to determine how to approach the project without any specific guidelines. Additionally, we improved our time management skills, working effectively to meet the tight deadline. We also learned how to collaborate as a team, which was especially challenging since we had little prior experience working together in a cross-functional team. We made a conscious effort to communicate effectively and treat each other with care to avoid conflicts. This skill will prove invaluable in future jobs where communication with colleagues, clients, and other stakeholders is critical. Moreover, we expanded our technical skills by working with new technologies and tools, some of which we had never encountered before. This allowed us to gain a better understanding of how different technologies work and how we can use them in future projects. For instance, some of us had little experience with front-end development, but through building a website, we learned how it works and how to make modifications. The hackathon provided us with a valuable learning experience that allowed us to grow both personally and professionally.

What's next for Flourish

As our next steps, first of all, we’d like to conduct user testing to better understand the target users and confirm its user flows. With the feedback from the testing, designers would like to create hi-fi prototypes and deliver them to developers. And with the hi-fi prototypes from designers, developers will nail down the design and work on the backend side code to make it fully functional. Lastly, we hope to work on a mobile version as well to make it more accessible.