Inspiration
Inspired by researchers at Johns Hopkins university, the best way to stay focused is by managing time. However, in today's world, computers, smartphones, and tablets only increase the likelihood of accessing social media and other distracting websites. We wanted to create a solution that addresses this problem in a fun yet interactive way. Hence, Help.me was born.
What it does
Help.me is a native web-app and chrome extension that pairs together for the ultimate browsing experience. When a user decides that he wants to remain focused for a period of time or wants to improve study habits in the long-run, he/she can use Help.me. Help.me is engineered based on different scenarios. If a user has a homework that he/she needs to work on, they can use the Homework Task feature. The Homework Task feature allows 5 minute breaks every 30 minutes of productivity. During the 30 minutes of productivity, all social media websites are blocked. In the _ Meeting _ feature, all news article sources and social media are blocked with shorter break intervals. Like so, we have 4 other custom features to help tailor user experience when using Help.me.
How I built it
Help.me is built through emerging yet light-weight technologies so it can be used in any location and any engine. The front-end consists of HTML and CSS. The backend is written in Node. Our Node server connects directly to the Chrome extension for seamless integration of blocked websites.
Challenges I ran into
It was very difficult for us to create an elegant UI and work with both a website and Chrome extension. The website does contain some heavy Javascript programming in the background for timers, HTTP requests, user refresh rates, error checking, etc. It was difficult for us to host this project on a temporary server and continue making many changes.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We were really happy to master the CSS on this project. We focused a lot of design as we know how much companies value customer satisfaction when utilizing such products. We were also happy to complete our Chrome extension, which surprisingly makes the whole app much mire convenient. The websites allows the user to find descriptions and customize the browser activity. The chrome extension monitors and enforces the activity in a fun yet seamless manner.
What I learned
Every project has its own dependencies. For instance, we though a Chrome extension was simply Javascript and HTML. However, there were many more requirements such as a precise icon, popup.js file, background.js file, and strict manifest requirements. It was also extremely difficult managing HTTP requests. We didn't come with experience of GET/POST methods, so we had to spend the whole night researching to build this product.
What's next for Help.me
We have a whole lot planned for the future of Help.me. First, as we graphically constructed our website for mobile and tablet as well as PC, we plan on adding mobile functionality by creating a physical application rather than a website. We want to be able to alert the user every time he/she goes on a social media site or goes to something that's irrelevant to a particular task. Next, we want to add analytics. We want for the user to be able to see what website he or she keeps going to. We can create a circular chart that illustrates how productive a user was a tailor feedback from university research studies. Finally, we want to create a messenger bot in par with this website and app. Students have a keen necessity to send text messages. A messenger bot would use soothing messages to get a user to go back to his/her initial task. We will plan on using some text machine-learning algorithms to find out exactly why a user is getting distracted and tailor tips to improve the user's performance.
Additional Notes
Keep in mind that the Chrome Extension is required for full functionality demonstrated in GIFs and presentation. It's on Github :). The URL listed is for the UI and partial functionality. Final commit was add files via upload. To view our functionality gifs, please visit link and link
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.