Karya

Karya is your go to e-commerce and creative platform, dedicated to easing Indonesian artists in sharing, purchasing and selling artworks

Comment

Inspiration

Being an artist in Indonesia is challenging. There is no dedicated platform that can connect and support artists of the Indonesian community. So, we decided to develop a mobile app for both Android and iOS with the aim of addressing this problem.

One of the benefits of this quarantine period is that we are given a chance to explore ourselves and develop. Many of us have found a new hobby be it cooking, gardening, or even learning how to code (and maybe join a virtual hackathon). Another benefit is the opportunity to improve our existing skills, something done especially frequently by patrons of the arts. Improving their skills are necessary to grow and evolve their craft, eventually being able to sell their works to more interested customers. And just like anybody, being able to do the things they love while providing a stable income is a dream to strive for. Unfortunately, artists find it hard to easily sell their works, because of the lack of platforms available geared to their preferences.

Even though the development of e-Commerce gave way to specialized online platforms dedicated to specific commodities, such as clothes and food, artworks and craftworks rarely have a place to be properly searched, bought, and sold from, particularly in Indonesia, as those that exist are usually not catered to Indonesian customers/sellers due to certain factors (i.e international payment methods, shipping, and customer base). Thus, our team has decided to create a mobile app aimed to support Indonesian artists and creators by providing them a platform to connect and sell their works.

Introducing: Karya

What it does

Karya is your go to e-commerce and creative platform, dedicated to easing Indonesian artists in purchasing and selling artworks. You are able to upload an image of your artwork, insert its title, create a short description, as well as its deciding price. New and professional artists alike can interact with each other, such as asking and giving advice, because Karya supports a community page. A shopping cart feature is also present, meaning that other artists and fans alike can easily choose and buy various artworks at once.

We designed Karya so that it is user friendly and convenient for artists who are new to e-commerce.

How we built it

Karya is mainly built using Flutter SDK and Dart Programming Language and uses Android Studio as the IDE. Firebase is used for the back-end operation of the application, including services such as Firestore for the database and Firebase Authentication for user sign in and log in. GitHub was used as the Version Control System (VCS), collaboration tool, and remote repository.

Challenges we ran into

  • Some of our hardware are not suitable to handle the software we use, particularly due to age
  • Most of our members are new to OOP
  • Most of our members are new to Dart, our chosen programming language
  • All of our members are unfamiliar with Firebase and NoSQL Databases
  • None of our members are experienced in app development
  • Layout configuration and making a uniform theme can be a hassle
  • No time to finish added features
  • Video editing

Accomplishment that we’re proud of

Building an app in under 36 hours is not an easy feat. We are satisfied that a project of this caliber can be completed by a team composed mostly of amateurs. It was a surprise the amount of progress that we are able to achieve using a new platform, one which we only had a few weeks’ time to learn how to use.

What we learned

  • How to program in Dart
  • Object Oriented Programming
  • How to create an app for iOS and Android
  • Firebase for back-end database creation
  • UI design and implementation
  • Remote communication for group hacking (Whatsapp, Gmeet)
  • Collaborative programming using GitHub
  • Time management
  • Stress management

What’s next for our project

  • Utilizing algorithms to sort and filter uploaded posts
  • Create a fully functional commission system for customer and artists
  • Connect to payment gateways and create a functional payment system
  • Functionalize following/follower feature
  • Functionalize post liking feature
  • Direct message/online chatting feature
  • Real-time streaming/stories
  • Comment and review section
  • Item and seller rating section
  • Machine learning implementations for recommendation and search engine

All in all, we can agree that this is a one of a kind experience. Thank you for this exciting learning opportunity!

Share this project:

Updates