This week, our group received the project brief and began developing ideas for our concept. After discussing different possibilities, we decided to create a dance-mat style product that could generate and store energy while a child is using it. I found this idea interesting because it combines physical activity, sustainability, and interactive design in a…

This week, after our group tutorial, we decided to change our original product idea. Instead of the self-charging dance mat, we changed it to a children’s toy that could charge a user’s phone through methods such as a hand crank, solar power, or batteries. At first this meant reworking some of the research I had…

This week, we had our weekly group tutorial and made more decisions about the app, especially the main features and push-goal features we wanted to include. This helped make the direction of the project clearer and gave us a better idea of what the app should actually do, rather than just having general ideas. I…

This week I properly started designing in Figma, and it took much longer than I originally expected. At first, I assumed it would be quite a quick task, but once I got into it, I realised there was a lot more to think about in terms of layout, consistency, and how each screen would work…

This week I started coding the app, which felt like a big step forward in my learning journey. At first, I found it difficult to understand how components worked in React Native, especially how to create them separately and then reuse them across different screens. However, once I got my head around this, the coding…

This week I added navigation to the app pages, which was an important step in making the app feel completer and more usable. To do this, I had to merge the pages I had already created into a new branch. This was something I had never done before, so I was quite worried at first.…

This week I implemented some of the feedback we received from user testing. One of the main changes I made was adding a welcome modal, which gives users a quick introduction to the app and explains what it is for when they first open it. This felt important because the testing showed that users, especially…

This week was mainly focused on finishing touches and preparing the app so that it felt more complete. Diana helped me set up placeholder React states in case we were able to connect the Arduino to the app later. This was useful because it showed me how the app could be prepared for future hardware…