Journal Sharing App

Assignment:

Design & develop an AR journal app:

• Setup Firebase for your app
• Develop a data model for each journal entry
• Be able to save and retrieve data
• Use the data to drive your experience
• User test experience, refine, user test again

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It's so exciting to finally learn Firebase and the basics of online database implementation for mobile apps. I was curious about ways to extend beyond a single-user database, so researched how to set up login authentication and generate unique id's for each user, to be stored with relevant data and allow for filtering of database content to their in-app experience.

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My inspiration for this project came from two sources:

1. I'm currently enrolled in an online cohort called Beyond Self-Discipline, where we form small teams and help each other pursue and keep track of proactive habit changes / formations over a two-week period
2. My relationship with my partner (makes sense for close friends too) ... I'm curious about creating apps with unique, nuanced ways of communicating beyond the interfaces of traditional messaging apps ... especially to help close the gap of long-distance periods in a relationship ... how can I make my partner's inspirational messages or reminders seem more personalized and stand out more from the constant flow of other types of mobile, text-based information?

I'm interested in how to make well-wishes, intention-settings, and reminders more tangible and ceremonialized. I think that having a special app and interface just for sending encouraging messages to close friends or loved ones to hang on their walls or anchor to the ground beneath their feet can better frame the power behind these messages and help them sink more into the subconscious mind. Different users can sign on and upload poems/messages/reminders that only the users they're connected to can download and visualize in their local environment.

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Process documentation:

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Demo of app:

A user logs in and checks what message(s) their connected user has uploaded in AR. They then upload their own message. Their connected user then signs in and views the message that was just uploaded in AR.

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Next steps:

• User test, get feedback, iterate
• Allow for more users
• Find out how to include other media in the database / storage buckets
• Add more tools like rescaling, changing text color and size in-app
• Clean up the code