Account of Activites on the Group Project

For term 1 of the Advanced Web Technologies project I worked with Burak and Matt in order to form Team Kittens. Throughout the project, rather than just using Facebook messenger or Whatsapp we tried out Slack in order to communicate as a team and keep track of what we needed to do.

We started the project with plenty of ideas but none were perfect so we eventually settled on the original idea of exchanging any skills. After feedback and more discussions the idea eventually evolved into Verto, a service that would allow people in the London area to teach each other languages.

In order to come up with the name we started searching translating words like Swap, language and exchange etc. for their Latin or similar alternative. We agreed that we didn't want a boring name like ‘Languages in London’ for example so I eventually found the word Verto, a latin word that translates to Exchange and Translate in English. We all understood that this is a name that you wouldn't immediately associate with the brand we wanted to create but felt it sounded great and through real world marketing could work.

I was responsible for creating the logo in which we worked together to choose a font that we liked and I went from there experimenting with typography to create something that would look appropriate for the service.

The white inside the ‘R’ and ‘O’ was intentional as we experimented with multiple effects before finally deciding on a finished logo and thought it made the logo stand out a little more on the blue background which we would we using for the header of our site.

While Matt and Burak were focussing more on the research aspect of this project and the API’s that could be used within our service, I did some research around the presentation of the service as well as possible API’s we could use. It also my role to create the landing page for our website which would represent the first thing that a potential new user would see.

I thought that the Facebook login API would be really useful for our service because, like Tinder, it would eliminate the likelihood of catfishing similar within our service. One of the main problems with our service was the fact that you would be meeting a stranger that you met online but the Facebook login would reduce the likelihood of problems arising upon meeting up with your language learning partner.

I also did some research around the Google Maps API which could be used effectively to help users meetup. This could either allow users to find other users to meetup with based on their location or allow users to search for meetup points based on what other users have entered.

Burak drew up a paper wireframe of the information we wanted to include in our initial prototype and I went from there using Adobe Muse to create a prototype quickly and efficiently.

Although it wasn't mentioned in the presentation, I used www.tutorfair.com and www.thebackscratchers.com as inspiration for the website which I eventually created for Verto.

We liked the way in which TutorFair allowed you to search for a subject or level within a specific postcode and felt this would work well for our service so I created a similar looking search function to theirs.

While the backscratchers website wasn't great, I like the way in which it was a one page scrolling website that clearly explained the services it provided. As a result we took inspiration from the services section with the logos and explanations. In order to create our ‘How it works’ section I found and edited icons to make them more appropriate for step we wanted to convey.

Overall I thought the website I created was a great working prototype that enabled us to convey the concept of our service easily and professionally. With more time I would have liked to have been more thorough in creating wireframes for the login process and the actual service in terms of how the API’s could be used or simply searching for languages, finding a partner, meeting up and leaving feedback. I do however think we did our research very well and chose a very promising niche.

See Website: http://lparker.ravewebmedia.co.uk/Verto/