Metanoia

Metanoia is a digital time-capsule that works by allowing a user to journal thoughts on though-provoking prompts that cycle annually, so they can observe and reflect on their changes over time.

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Inspiration

Our inspiration for Metanoia was to allow everyone a platform to self-reflect on their own changes over time and offer a space to store feelings of nostalgia they can access at any time. We wanted to target people who don't have a habit of journaling or don't know what to write but want to learn to understand themselves better.

What it does

Metanoia is going to be a website that can be launched from a Chrome extension (which will serve as a daily reminder for users to jot down their thoughts on the prompt of the day), and once on the site users will be greeted with a beautiful cottage-core themed interface. On the page the prompt will be displayed as well as a space to write and submit their entry. The user will write however much they wish, and their entry will be submitted and saved. On the right there is a Home page, a Past Entries page to jump into their time-capsule, and a profile section.

How we built it

In our ideation process we used various sketching and prototyping apps to build low and high fidelity prototypes (Notability, Mockitt, Dall-E).

To build the actual site: Frontend - We used HTML and CSS to set up our main pages the users will interact with. Backend - We used Javascript and SQL to set up the backend and database. Chrome extension - We also used HTML and Json files to set up a downloadable chrome extension We utilized Github Copilot to help us develop and debug some of our code.

Testing & Debugging: We used Chrome and Docker to test our site pages and the APIs.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge has been setting up the backend. Individually all the components of the site mostly work but getting them to work together has proven difficult. In the time we were given we were able to write a lot of our main code for the backend but we were unable to get a fully functional site running. Another challenge was designing a user-friendly UI with a comfortable aesthetic, it took many iterations of design, and the subjectivity of what each user finds "comfortable" makes it hard to create something that will appeal to all.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are really proud of our ideation and design process as we took our time planning various details before just jumping in. We're also really proud of how much we learned about how various components of a website work together. Most of us knew HTML but don't have tons of experience with backend development. This was also our first time creating a chrome extension so we're proud of trying something new that expanded our skills and knowledge.

What we learned

We learned a lot about Javascript and various tools for hosting websites such as Heroku and Render. From Github merge errors, to battling with various errors on chrome when trying to upload our extension through exceptional teamwork we worked through each challenge together. The workshops also provided us with valuable skills. The Github Copilot training was a game changer in accelerating our progress! And we're happy to say we don't plan on using Adobe flash anytime soon so we're on a good path for security considerations.

What's next for Metanoia

After we get our backend fully functioning and the site successfully hosted we want to focus on improving the user experience. But if we're looking really far in the future, we also want to add functionalities where users can curate some on their own annual prompts to add personalization.

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