Just A Shopping List

The Shopper's list with both Mum's and Dad's list combined.
Dad's list.
Mum's list.
Adding the price of an item as it's bought.

Inspiration

Covid-19 has had a massive impact on our day-to-day lives, and one major cause for anxiety has been around food shopping. We've already seen it with panic-buying and mass-hoarding of everyday items.

Like many of you, I have elderly relatives and neighbours who are at high-risk from the virus, and they are really struggling for food supplies. Food deliveries are fully booked for weeks ahead, and yet we are all being encouraged to stay at home as much as possible.

What it does

Our submission for the hackathon is a simple, accessible, collaborative food shopping list. It will allow everyone to add the items they need, and make it easy for the shopper when they are at the shops.

The simplest possible user interface for users to add items to their shopping list.
Low technology requirements to run the application - any web browser running on any device.
Sharing a shopping list is as simple as sharing a web link - works across any messaging platform, email or SMS.
Real-time updates to give the person shopping the latest list, even whilst they're shopping.
Answer the 'what do I owe you' question, allowing item cost to be gathered and automatically 'totted up' after the shop.
Keeping it simple - no lists of lists to manage, a single list over multiple shopping trips.

How we built it

Keeping it simple... HTML, Vanilla Javascript, Socket.IO, node.js, express.js

Challenges we ran into

Ensuring UI/UX relates to core users. Considering their technical ability and potential lack of access to the latest devices. Keeping it simple!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a working implementation that could easily scale, is pragmatic in the features it offers without over engineering or unnecessary complexity.

What we learned

Going back to vanilla javascript, avoiding latest and greatest frameworks can still be productive and satisfying to develop with.

What's next for Just A Shopping List

Test with real users - get it out there making a difference. Guard against denial of service service attacks and anything else a bad user could do. Visual improvements. Host it. Maybe an app?