Inspiration
When’s the last time you bought something online? How often do you make questionable purchases? Do you have a leaky wallet? If you’re one of the 263 million Americans who shop online, then ShouldICop? is perfect for you! In a world where buying has never been easier, it’s also easy to lose sight of how much you are really spending. Our website and chrome extension bring back perspective on the real cost behind our purchases and promote good financial habits in a fun and quirky fashion.
Why you need it
Our google extension appears right below the price tag when you're browsing on sites like Amazon or Apple, giving the consumer real-life examples of what their money's really worth. Studies have shown that humans are notoriously bad at interpreting large numbers leading to bad spending habits. Research had also suggested that addictive shopping is related to low self-esteem, depression, and other addictive behaviors. We all need that sensible friend that makes us think over our financial decisions before committing. ShouldICop? provides a friendly avenue of visualizing your purchase without being overly invasive on your online shopping experience.
How we built it
We used our prior web experience to build a static website and host it on AWS, along with learning how to develop a Chrome extension and deploy it during the competition. The backend is NGINX and a Lightsail instance with Godaddy DNS, and the frontend is vanilla web languages.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our google extension blending into Amazon and Apple and transitioning smoothly into our website is something we worked heavily on. Another aspect we're really proud of is the visual design and formatting of our website overall from the logo to loading numbers.
What we learned
We learned how to create google extensions and use masonry for our website. Some of our members new to coding learned HTML to animate the website.
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