Inspiration
Looking at the prompts, we were inspired by our common experiences in online customer service to pursue this prompt that tackled using AI as an assistant in customer service. We all had the collective experience of being put on hold or struggling to find information, so we decided to take a helpful AI approach.
What it does
This website assists buyers when shopping online. It is a mock-up of a website in which users can input items, view all available items, and add items to their shopping cart. Alongside, there is an chatbot to help them with any part of their customer experience, providing answers to any website-commerce related questions.
How we built it
We built Smart Shopper using React, Javascript, and CSS. First, we set up a firebase to manage our inventory, and then began building the UI whilst creating the chatbot. Each of the three components were developed depending on the added features of each others projects, until finally all the components were merged.
Challenges we ran into
One challenge we encountered was when merging our components, there were many inconsistencies among our code that resulted in a lot of time in adjustments. Given that this was all of our first or second Hackathon(s), it was a bit of a challenge to work alongside each other efficiently to produce an end product. In addition, we wrote the code for the chatbot in HTML as most online resources for that specific project were written in HTML. However, our code was ultimately in React, so we even though we had finished the chatbot code, we had to translate all the functions, which also took a substantial amount of time.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Given that we all had minimal competitive coding experience and not a lot of computer science experience in general, we were all extremely proud that we managed to compile a working application in the allotted time. While it certainly has its flaws, we all learned a lot and came away from the Hackathon with new skills and knowledge.
What we learned
Many of us learned new frameworks and languages. Two of our team members are new to hackathons, and we all had generally little experience in web development. Together we learned firebase, React, Javascript, and how to use Git.
What's next for Smart Shopper
Next, Smart Shopper is ready to be applied to real companies' websites, so that users can not only manage their purchases, but also receive the best customer experience.
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