OneStop
All of your messaging needs in one.
By Raquel Van Ry, Fortesa Miloti, Sarah Darrell and Damon Scott
Do you ever get tired of signing in, signing out, opening apps and closing them, all just to check on a few notifications? It can take hours just to get through all of your messages, especially when you have to go to various locations just to access them. Unsurprisingly, this is a very common issue and we understand your struggles which is why we came up with OneStop, all of your messaging needs in one.
What is OneStop?
OneStop is not just another platform you need to worry about maintaining, it is THE platform. OneStop allows you to connect all messaging applications to one convenient platform. In doing so, all of the messages and responses you may need to address will exist in one place. Our goal at OneStop is to provide our users an all-in-one experience that simplifies their lives by bringing all of their communication and promotion accounts together in one place.
Tools That We Used:
As we started working on the development of OneStop, we faced a few obstacles. As it turns out, developing an app that joins all of your communication platforms into one is somewhat of a challenge to create. Upon realizing this challenge, we contacted our Professor, Kris Hans, for some expert advice. He advised us on which tools we might be able to use to develop our idea. The following tools outlined are some of the resources we used in developing a prototype for OneStop.
Tool #1: Getting Real book by Basecamp
Alright, so you probably were not expecting that a book was going to be the first resource, but keep reading. Starting on your own business venture or product creation can be really intimidating! To find the best way to bring an idea to light, can definitely require a little bit of inspiration to start facing the seemingly overwhelming obstacles. Getting Real was a great resource for this inspiration (Basecamp, 2020). Getting Real helps you to fast-forward in a sense, to get past all of the research, thinking and pondering, right into the nitty-gritty development process (Basecamp, 2020). It does not give you step-by-step instructions on how specifically to do something, but rather it gives you the framework you need to start on a project yourself. It helps you to leave your dreamer self behind and finally become a doer. Give it a read, then move onto the next tools that have been outlined in this article.
Tool #2: Canva
Everybody knows that developing the face of your company is of the utmost importance. It is a good idea to start by coming up with your company or product’s name, logo and mission, so that you and your team have a similar understanding of the product or service and value that you are creating for consumers. For this process Canva is a great resource(Canva, 2020). The intuitive, free, logo design tool. It is the perfect tool to use when you are just getting started! As soon as you have finished reading this article, you should be able to create your own logo on Canva like a pro. That’s why this article contains about 10,000 pictures to really simplify the process (slight exaggeration) to help you follow along.
Step 1: Getting Started
This is Canva’s home page. Once you create a profile, it saves your designs which you can then share with your team. It also gives you guidance on how to make projects of different forms. You can make logos, flyers, posters, videos, cards, presentations and really just about anything to enhance your business.
Step 2: Learn the Tools
On the left-hand side of the screen, there is a series of tools you can use when creating your logo. Everything we did in creating OneStop’s logo on Canva was free but you can upgrade for more text, pictures, icons etc.
In the top left corner of the screen, there is a search bar with which you can search up symbols or images to add to your logo.
Note: if there is a dollar symbol beside the image as seen in the screen capture below, it means that purchase is necessary to use the image in your logo design.
Step 3: Finishing Up
Now that you have found a symbol that fits your company or project image, it is time to make your logo more appealing to potential customers. Choose a font for your name and slogan, then you can choose from an array of backdrops and colours for your background or you can just keep it simple like we did. If you decide to print your logo on any merchandise or swag for your customers, keeping the colour and design simple will keep your cost lower.
Step 4: All Done!
Once you are happy with your logo design, you can then save the logo in various formats. As stated in the screen capture above, it is suggested that you save your logo as a PNG. This is because in the future, when you want to start printing your logo on sweaters or posters, etc., it will print out with a crisp, appealing logo, not including a white background as a JPG might. And that is all, happy logoing!
Tool #2: Flutter
Flutter is Google’s latest app designing software released just last year (Flutter, 2020). This tool definitely helped us out a lot in the development of OneStop. Flutter provides free app development software to everyone with basic app functions and widgets that Google’s employees created already installed. For those of you that get a bit turned off by the idea of coding, Flutter is a great choice for you. As always, Google developed something that makes the process increasingly more straightforward, making it easier for developers to create their own interfaces for people like us to use. It enables you to format your app’s UI much like a blogging or logo design platform can. Flutter will add in any buttons, backdrops and other pre-made widgets to your app so you do not have to!
Step 1: Set-up
Flutter does require a bit more set-up than the previous tool, but it is worth it! Simply just follow the installation prompts on Flutter’s home screen linked here to be on your way to developing your very own app. A great resource to help you get started with Flutter and downloading it onto your computer are these videos, be sure to watch part’s 1, 2 and 3 to make sure you don’t make any mistakes when installing Flutter onto your computer.
As you can see above, there are different options to select from when you first open Flutter. Simply select “Flutter Application” to continue.
Continue to follow the prompts and this step-by-step set-up guide to help this process run as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Step #2: Start Coding
Do not get scared off! Yes, coding may sound terrifying to some people, but Google really pulled through in this case because Flutter is a lot more user-friendly than you might expect. As you can see in the screen capture above, once your Flutter project is started, you can see what your app might look like on a mobile phone. Below, there are a few key facts that you should know about Flutter and things you are going to need to help you on your way, click here for more information:
- Flutter can be used on both Windows and Mac devices
- You will need some sort of code editor (ex. Android Studio or VS Code are both great options, for OneStop we used Android Studio)
- You can create both an Android or IOS apps with Flutter
- Flutter enables you to run an android emulator (basically a pretend version of a phone as seen in the screen capture above) which lets you see how your app would look on a mobile device
- There are tool add-on’s like codemagic that enable you to create, test and bring your app directly to the app store
This is an example of what you might find upon discovering the various app widgets that Google employees developed for your purposes. In the image on the left, the ‘toggle’ tool was used to swap between both IOS and Android device displays so that you can see what the app looks like on both systems.
Step #3: Finishing Up
Tie up all of the loose ends of your app creation in Flutter and bring your app to the Google Play and App Store! Here’s the general mobile user interface of OneStop, and now it’s time for you to create yours.
Step 4: Your Turn!
Once you are all set up, use this link to watch a video on how to start creating your very own app like OneStop! Remember, Flutter is free software that you can practice with so you do not have to worry about being successful on your first try. If you are like the average person and you do not have very much experience with coding let alone app creation, then be patient with yourself and watch the demo videos and how-to links that have been listed throughout this article to help you through it. Even if you don’t come up with a finished product, at least you are finally starting and at least trying to do it! That is a key quality that successful entrepreneurs require so if you have got that, you are well on your way. Good luck!
References:
Basecamp — The All-In-One Toolkit for Working Remotely. (2020). Retrieved from https://basecamp.com
Canva — Collaborate & Create Amazing Graphic Design for Free. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.canva.com
Canva Backgrounds (2020). [Screen capture]. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com
Canva Homepage (2020). [Screen capture]. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com
Canva Logo Creator (2020). [Screen capture]. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com
Canva Logo Tools (2020). [Screen capture]. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com
Canva Symbols (2020). [Screen capture]. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com
Codemagic by Microsoft. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://codemagic.io/start/
Download Android Studio and SDK tools : Android Developers. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://developer.android.com/studio
Getting Real. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://basecamp.com/gettingreal
OneStop (2020), OneStop Logo. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com
Prerequisites for Flutter Development LBeautiful native apps in record time. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://flutter.dev/
Visual Studio Code — Code Editing. Redefined. (2016, April 14). Retrieved from https://code.visualstudio.com/Angela Yu, Prerequisites for Flutter Development London App Brewery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gegvWBMOTg
Yu, Angela. (n.d.). How to Install and Setup Flutter for App Development on Windows — Part 2. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YlJ9RjdpkA
Yu, Angela. (n.d.). Learn Flutter Development to Build Mobile Apps at the App Brewery. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT5SlzPdZgg
Yu, Angela. (n.d.). Prerequisites for Flutter Development. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gegvWBMOTg
