nook | Devpost

Inspiration

We decided to foster community by creating a platform that allows users to safely and anonymously express themselves and respond to others who have gone through similar struggles. We were inspired by the concept of tree holes, popular in China, where in ancient times, it is said people would go into the mountains and the forests to find a tree hole, tell the tree hole their secrets, then seal the hole with some mud, and the secrets would stay there forever. nook is like your tree hole you can tell anything and emotionally feel supported and safe.

What it does

Nook fosters community, promotes, belonging, and encourages a safe space by creating a platform that allows users to safely and anonymously express themselves and respond to others who have gone through similar struggles. Be it stress from work, traumatic life events, discrimination, or any other struggles that under-represented communities might face, our web app help people overcome Nook allows users to send their worries or experiences, called whispers, into the system anonymously. Users can view a random whispers and respond empathetically and encouragingly by typing their thoughts or sending graphics. Users can also view the responses to their own whispers and whisper history. This gives people a space to connect with others and creates a supportive community Refining our requirements took a lot of time but once we figured out exactly what we wanted to do we were excited to start. Figuring out how to start up the website and connect all the different components was challenging since we all wanted to expand our web development skills

How we built it

We created a web app in front-end HTML, CSS, and React and back-end in Javascript. We designed the graphical user interface and modelled user flow in Figma.

Challenges we ran into

We had some challenges specifying the requirements for our application. We wanted to make sure we could create something feasible that also made an impact. We communicated a lot to get through this and we ended up with very clear user requirements of a web app that we were all excited to work on. Another challenge was the coding, we are all new to React and were unfamiliar with the process of building a website with it. There were also some difficulties translating the Figma into code. We learned the importance of well-defined system requirements and planning the tools for a project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of the GUI that we created, it creates a cozy environment for the user and is visually pleasing. Figma was a great tool to use for this and we now have more knowledge about it to apply it to future projects.

What we learned

Communication was an integral part of the process: it was especially important to be specific and articulate exactly what we had in mind when communicating ideas related to the project. In addition, we have gained experience in planning an application and all the steps required to do this.

What's next for Nook

If we had more time we would definitely make this interactable and fully functional. We would also add security encryption, password managing, and account creation.