focreadus

focreadus minimalist landing page
focreadus showing essential features
mobile version of the timer
flashcard creation UI
create draggable sticky notes with ease
listen to Spotify chill background music
watch YouTube tutorials

Inspiration

It all started from when I went to the library and wanted to read my books in a serene environment. What I discovered was that even though the library was serene, I had a major challenge with my digital study environment. It was hard to keep track of all the study tools I needed to use at the time. I had Chrome tabs opened for watching YouTube videos about what I wanted to learn, other Chrome tabs to time my reading or use the Pomodoro timer, and also had a separate window opened for listening to a background music on Spotify, and another window to write sticky notes. Switching between these Windows was not very cool for me, and I was curious how nice it would be to have a system which would have all of these features in just one screen without having to switch between tabs, and that's when I started documenting my thoughts and I asked the couple of questions, answered them, and focreadus came to life.

What it does

focreadus is a comprehensive learning hub that brings together everything you need for effective studying and information retention. Our platform integrates a PDF viewer, a Pomodoro timer, a music player, and an embedded YouTube video player, all within one seamless interface. But that’s not all—you can also create flashcards and add summaries directly as you study, ensuring you capture the most critical points in real-time. By using focreadus, users can expect improved focus, better time management, and enhanced information retention. Our platform encourages consistent study habits, helping users achieve their academic and professional goals more efficiently.

How we built it

The development started from designing the interface on paper, writing out all the essential features, the technologies and frameworks needed, and how complex each feature would be. Prior to the development, we made research on how study tools help people learn and retain information better and how to stay away from distractions. We also asked a couple of people what they think about the idea, and we got positive responses from them. Then we created a NextJS project and started writing code. After many iterations, we finally arrived at the PoC, then up to the MVP stage of the solution, and we're working to scale it up.

Challenges we ran into

Building both the desktop and mobile versions was very challenging, because we had it in mind to build just the desktop version before and never intended to build the mobile version, but after seeing that the project needs to be responsive, we had to work to design and develop the intuitive mobile version for focreadus, without a UI/UX designer.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Being able to pull this off in so little time is something we're proud of, with the complexity of the project and how to implement many core features into a single all-in-one solution.

What we learned

Given the short time required to complete the project, we discovered that a lot could actually be achieved in so little time, when one is focused. Team work and collaboration was also very instrumental to the progress of focreadus.

What's next for focreadus

We will work on scaling focreadus and keep iterating to improve the user interface and user experience. We're also planning on working closely with our beta users to build according to what they love. We're building focreadus for every learner out there, and everyone deserves to be included in the development process. Not only that, we also plan to integrate AI into focreadus, to give users a better and more seamless experience on the platform.