Serendipity - a Donation App

A one-stop portal for all donations.

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Inspiration

Our primary source of inspiration is the current COVID-19 pandemic. The need for donations for many causes has increased, and there is a scarcity of applications that provide a collective list of online donation portals. The majority of donations are being made out to aid the COVID-19 crisis in various countries but other important issues concerning the wellbeing of the underprivileged, people of determination, women, children and cancer patients have been shifted from the limelight. As a result, we developed an Android application that functions as a one-stop online donation portal, allowing users to donate to their favorite charity with a single click of a button.

What it does

The Serendipity application has many features. It consists of a list of reputable organisations segregated on the basis of causes. The app gives the user an option to select a country from India, the United Arab Emirates or the United States of America. Users can then choose to donate food, clothing, toys, books, or money (for causes like Cancer, Children, Covid-19, People of Determination, Underprivileged and Women). After clicking on any of the charities, users are then routed to their respective online donation portals.

How we built it

The Serendipity application was built using Android Studio IDE and JAVA programming language.

The main elements of this application are:

  • Android Material Design
  • CardView
  • RecyclerView
  • Spinner
  • Adobe XD
  • Glide Dependency

Challenges we ran into

Some of the challenges we faced during the creation of this app are:

  • Optimization of the application. We faced difficulty in trying to reduce the number of XML layout files and activities associated with the various organizations.
  • Conversion of scalable vector images(.svg) into .png or .jpg image format or vice versa for the logo and splash screen.
  • We had a large number of drawables consisting of the logos of the various different organizations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Some of the accomplishments we are proud of are:

  • Implementing RecyclerView in order to achieve optimization of the application. By usage of RecyclerView we were able to limit the number of XML layouts used and make the list of organizations scrollable and provide a more user friendly layout.
  • Successfully being able to use scalable vector images and .png or .jpg images with the help of Adobe XD.
  • Glide Dependency was used in order to limit the number of images in the drawables by loading the image directly using the image URLs.

What we learned

We have learnt the basics of Android application development with the help of JAVA programming language. We have likewise perceived to utilize Recycler view and Card view from Android Material Design. We have also understood how to use Glide dependency to import image URLs into the card view instead of downloading each image. This has assisted us in reducing the number of Activities and XML files for organisations.We have also learnt to use Adobe XD which is a design software in order to make a splash screen and logo for the application.

What's next for Serendipity

The Serendipity app can be further improved by including more countries around the world and their respective credible organizations. This way it will become more accessible to a larger population across the globe. The User Interface Design can also be improved by using principles listed in Android Material Design.

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