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This application was undertaken as my submission for the Interactive Frontend Development Milestone Project (MS2).
The Kilmacow Community Clean Up App was developed in partnership with the Kilmacow Community Clean Up Group. Following on from the success of the KCC website, the group immediately began formulating plans to further develop the site and provide users with a more engaging experience. The idea of a web application was proposed. The web app allows users to contribute to the group by reporting ‘blackspots for litter’, ‘areas for improvement’ and general issues in the community that the Community Clean Up Group could address or forward onto the appropriate authorities, such as the local council.
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"I would like to inform the group of a litter issue or area for improvement"
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"I would like to upload photos to provide evidence of my concern"
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"I would like to location stamp the area of concern"
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"I would like to see if any events have been added / updated since my last visit"
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"I would like to contact the KCC group about future project ideas"
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"Whilst the app is in it's testing phase, I would like to provide feedback regarding design, functionality and ideas for future features"
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Develop and deploy a minimal viable product to explore the viability of a fully functioning web application. The goal of the app is to be tranformed into a progressive web app (PWA)
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Clean UI / UX for simple navigation. Visitors are from a traditionally non-web-savvy demographic.
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Gather feedback to influence the future design and features of the app
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Increase user engagement by providing a platform for users to contribute to the group
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Increase feedback from members
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Easy to navigate application / fimiliar interface
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Incorporate existing branding and colour scheme
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The client has requested a web application with a clean, uncluttered layout that has a sense of familiarity. The app should incorporate branding and style elements of the existing website.
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The client has requested I take full ownership of the development and maintenance of the site.
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Once the app is deployed and the KCC members begin using it, a period of time will be allowed to measure the uptake and feedback from the users. This will determine if further resources will be invested the application.
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As my coding skills develop the future features will be added to the app.
The application aims to look and feel like a native application. The app is designed in the style and framework of a SPA (Single Page Application). Upon opening the app, the user will be greeted with the 'Home Section'. This section is designed to welcome returning users and in future releases act like a social media feed with news and updates. New users will be greeted with information about the app and permission requests that will be required in order to upload photos, access their camera and provide gps for location tracking. The aim is to inform the user so they are not suspicious or unsure when the browser requests such permissions. The navigation of the app will be based upon a card system layout, the hope is it will provide familiarity to the user and will allow for adding new features without redesigning the interface. Each of the cards represents a different feature and section of the app. These cards include: "Home","Report", "Events", "Contact".
The home section of the app contains contact details for the Kilmacow Community Clean Up Group. Upon navigating to the app this is the section the user is first presented with. A greeting message slides down and welcomes the user to the page. If at a future point in time the user fills out any of the forms on the app, their name is captures, stored in local storage and is used to personalise this greeting in the future, i.e. Good Morning Edward, Good Evening Edward etc! The home section also contains some text welcoming the user and explaining to them that the app is still in a testing phase and ask them to provide feedback to help develop the app further. A notice about location permissions is also included to prepare the user for the report form, the browser will request location permissions. It is proposed that as the app develops further this section will act like a news feed, similar to that on social media sites, providing the user with updates about upcoming events and content from the groups social media pages.
The reports section of the app shows an image letting the user know there is no reports to show. Once the user clicks the call-to-action button they will be asked for their location. The pop-up form includes an input field for a brief description of the report, allows them to capture images from their device or upload images, displays the images in a slider and once submitted, the report is emailed to the group and stored in local storage of the user’s device. Upon returning to the page after posting reports, the user will see cards showing their previous reports.
The Events section will contain cards, initially outlining overview information about upcoming events, such as meeting location, time and invitees. The overview cards can be expanded to display more in-depth information. These event cards are featured on the KCC website and the client requested that they be included in the app also. These will be updated live when the app is connected to a database.
The Contact section contains a form for contacting the KCC. The form will allow visitors include their name and email address; a text area will provide a method for visitors to include a personalised message. The contact section also includes a link to a feedback form that we ask users to fill out rating different aspects of the app. This will determine any future features that the app will include and any changes the users would like to see. The contact section also includes the contact details for the KCC, such as website address, email address, postal address and contact number.
Balsamiq Wireframes was used to wireframe the website.
The web app uses the same typography and logo that are featured on the clients existing website. To give the app a more "native" feel a selection of familiar colours to poular apps were chosen. I believe this will elevate the appearance of the app, once it is Progressively Enhcanced (installable as a Progressive Web App).
The web app features 2 colour schemes (dark mode & light mode) based on the users OS / browser settings. The stylesheet contains the media query prefers-color-scheme: to determine the colour scheme displayed.
Light mode colour pallette:
Dark mode colour pallette:
The font used throughout the website is Atkinson Hyperlegible, with Sans-Serif used as a fallback. The font weight and font size css attributes are used with the font for emphasis and hierarchy. Atkinson Hyperlegible was chosen, as it focuses on letterform distinction to increase character recognition, ultimately improving readability. You can find out more here
The licence for the logo is available here. Vectors were selected from my Adobe Stock account to display on the events page if no data is available and on the reports page if no previous reports were made. The licences for both are available here.
Icomoon was used to create a custom icon set. Not only does this allow you to pick and choose icons from multiple icon packs, it dramatically reduces the overhead of using fontawesome.
- Responsive Single Page Application built with HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- Fixed navigation bar for easy navigation as per client’s request
- Expandable and collapsible event cards
- Feedback form with rating system as per client’s request
- Contact form
- Report form with image capture / upload and geolocation information
- The navbar should be easily accessible and fixed to the top of the browser across all webpage sections on desktop and fixed to the bottom of the browser across all webpage sections on mobile
- The menu items should change size and colour when hovered over on devices with a mouse
- The menu links should display the relevant section when clicked
- The home section should display upon visiting the app. It should also be accessible by clicking the home button on the navbar
- A slide down greeting message should appear. This should contain a personalised greeting after the user uses one of the contact forms – their name is stored in local storage.
- The greeting should be relevant to the time of day – ie. Good Evening user name, Good Morning user name
- The home section text should be legible across all browser sizes
- Contact details should navigate to the correct pages and where applicable, open links in new tabs / applications
- The first time a user visits the reports section should show the user there is no previous reports
- The report pop-up form should display once the cta button is clicked
- The user should be requested location permissions by the browser
- The New Report form should display the users current position
- Upon clicking the image upload button, the user should be asked to upload images or capture from their device’s camera
- Upon selecting / capturing images – these images should be displayed back to the user
- On submission of the report form, the pop up should close.
- On the second visit to the page, the users previous reports should be displayed
- The report cards should contain the location and time of the report
- The Events section is accessed by clicking the relevant link on the navbar
- This section contains event cards. The event cards should wrap underneath each other on mobile devices.
- If no events are available to show, a notification image should appear
- The event cards should expand and collapse when clicked
- The Contact section is accessed by clicking the relevant link on the navbar
- The Contact sections has two subsections.
- The first section should display contact information for the KCC including website address, postal address, email address, phone number and social media links. These links should navigate to the correct pages and where applicable, open links in new tabs / applications
- The second section contains a contact form where visitors can contact the KCC.
- The form contains name and email inputs that are required, a text area for general comments or messages.
- The submit button should indicate ‘a state of loading’ once clicked, provided all form validations pass
- The contact form also contains a link to a pop-up feedback form. This allows users to provide feedback n the app whilst it’s in the testing stage.
- The feedback ratings should change when clicked
- Service worker to be added to the application, this will allow the app to be installed on the user’s device. (beforeInstallEvent) - capture & update the user interface with a customised button for installing the PWA
- The Service worker will also expose the cacheApi - precache the app shell for fast page speeds and 'offline' functionality
- backgroundSyncApi - allow the users to post reports even when offline - the background sync api can store the data locally, posting to the api endpoint when the device regains network connection. It is proposed that workbox be used for this.
- Home section to ‘act’ like a news feed.
- Add to calendar button on events cards
- Cookie notification pop up and privacy policy
Due to the large file size, the testing section is available in it's own file
- HTML5
- CSS3
- JavaScript
- Atkinson Hyperlegible - self hosted as no CDN avaialble at time of publishing
- IcoMoon - Self hosted fonts
- Gitpod IDE - IDE
- Git - version control system
- Github - repository storage
- Chrome DevTools - used for debugging code
- Adobe Photoshop - image resizing & editing
- Adobe Illustrator - used for vector & svg editing
- Balsamiq Wireframes - used for wireframing website
- Typora - help with markdown writing & editing
- Microsoft Word - content wrtiting
- Tiny PNG / JPG - compressing images
- Am I Responsive - viewport image for README
- CSS Matic - css box shadow generator
- Coolors - colour pallette genarator, used in README surface section
- Gradient - gradient genarator
- JSONLint - JSON validator
- Validator - HTML code validator
- Jigsaw - CSS code validator
- GTmetrix - Site performance testing
- WAVE - Site accessibility testing
- Online Spell Check - README spell checker
- LambdaTest - cross browser testing
The project was created using the Code Institute workspace template, available here. To use this template:
- Click use this template
- Name the new repository and select ‘Create repository from template’
- Navigate to the newly created repository and select Gitpod*
- The template workspace should now open in Gitpod
*The Gitpod browser extension must be installed for this option to become visible. Gitpod provide a browser extension for Chrome here and for Firefox here
This website is hosted on Github Pages. To deploy the live site, I followed these steps:
- Navigate to the Github repository
- Click the ‘Settings’ tab
- In the Github pages section, select Master Branch as the source and click save.
- The site URL is now displayed*
*The site can take a period of time to go live
To run this project locally there are two options through Github (clone or download). To clone or download, navigate to the repository, click the Code button and select Clone or Download:
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Clone: This option provides you with a URL that can be used in your local IDE. Use the 'git clone' command followed by the provided URL to create a clone of the project locally.
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Download: This option provides a .zip file that can be downloaded, extracted and deployed to a local webserver or edited in your IDE.
All text content was written by myself with approval from The Kilmacow Community Clean-up Group.
The licence for the logo is available here. The licence for the additional images are available here.
CSS
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mouse0270 bootsnip - The layout of the 'event cards' was inspired by mouse0270, however the code was not responsive so I replicated similar cards using flexbox
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Ben Szabo 18/10/2017 CodePen - android button ripple effect
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The App Guruz - slideInDown & slideInLeft animations
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Bennett Feely 25/05/2013 CoePen - Inspiration for Google Now style cards. Code was re-written to suit
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Shadi Abu Hilal JSFiddle - inspiration for Feedback form - recoded to include additional icons
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kiraan 13/03/2019 CodePen - call to action button on Reports section
JS
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Chris Ferdinandi - addToLocalStorageObject & getFromLocalStorageObject were inspired by Chris Ferdinandi localStorage and sessionStorage helper library. I am a huge fan of Chris.
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Pierre Smith 26/04/2017 CodePen - toast notification
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joshua.paling October 2019 Stack Overflow - base 64 encoding images
a11y
- Scott Vinkle 13/04/2018 Medium - a11y tips for screen readers
I would like to thank my mentor Rohit Sharma for their advice and guidance I would also like to give a special mention to past pupils / current tutors for their invaluable knowledge and willingness to share it on slack and on the video conferences they hosted