Give a secret, get a secret

landing page mock design in Figma
secret confession form mock design in Figma
secret reveal mock design in Figma

What is "give a secret, get a secret" ?

It’s a webapp all about self-love, acceptance, acknowledging your emotions, and setting them free. If you’ve ever just wanted to feel like someone, anyone, is listening to you, while also returning the favor, our website is 100% for you.

It’s inspired by our own need to cope with our feelings, but especially by journaling and using the support systems available to us. Emotions are so often associated with femininity, fragility, and weakness. But the only way to combat this is to embrace who we are as profoundly sensitive people. Everyone has different needs, but "give a secret, get a secret" is for ANYONE, regardless of age, gender, class, race, or health.

What does it ACTUALLY do?

You can choose from one of our four categories that describes a secret you’re holding in. Then, in a 90s/Y2K fashion, you can share and confess that secret anonymously. And right after, you’ll get to read a secret from someone random anywhere in the world, with a similar topic to yours.

What can this do for me?

Provide relief/catharsis
Reassure you that you aren’t alone and show that your struggles can be relatable
Battle against shame and toxic mindsets around showing emotions
Help recognize and come to terms with how you cope and express yourself
Connect with others anonymously
Engage in some low-stakes, emotional venting
Feel validated and stronger

Can I use it now?

Right now, “give a secret, get a secret” is simply a demo with no plans for further development. You can select a category from the homepage and type in a secret and submit it; however none of your data is saved, and the secrets you are shown are from a pre-gathered, randomized dataset.

How tough was it to pull this together?

Some of our challenges included figuring out how to collaborate on this project in such a short time frame, and how to divide roles equally while also giving everyone chance to express themselves with the project. We also faced some challenges with deciding how far to take the project-- could we get it fully functional, with a domain, server, and working form? We decided to go for an alpha of our idea rather than a full demo.

So… what's the takeaway here?

I think we all learned lots from this project, but especially how to assert and actualize our own ideas while collaborating with others. It made us stronger team players AND stronger developers. We were also able to express long held resentments towards society’s views on emotional expression, and resolve that frustration through a bit of action. Not only did we accomplish things practically as a group, we also settled our own hunger for a change.

Lovingly designed and developed using Figma, HTML5, CSS5, JQuery, and our hearts.