Digital Media Project

On the 12th of May 2020 the app was launch at 11:00am and the URL made available for users to see and access the application on.  An animation was posted at 11:00am announcing the app as prior to this event I set up a countdown which made users turn notifications on for on Instagram. I also hosted a live Q&A for users to ask questions about the app, Codability and women in tech in general. This was very successful with many users sending in their questions, I added them all to a highlight labelled "Q&A" for users to rewatch and look over.  Originally, I wanted to be able to host the app on the app/play store however due to some technical challenges and parts of the app being hard coded and functionality missing in some places it would have not been a good idea to do this. Also, being able to launch it and pay for the hosting on the app would have been another factor to look into.  Overall, I had a reall...

Google Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool which highlights the quality of your web pages and how to improve them. This is super useful to see how your application is running and what works well. I completed a Google Lighthouse audit on my application Codability. The results are shown below and I have also got a PDF version with all details of the full report. Overall, it was reassuring to see most features are in green, performance 100, best practices 93, SEO 91 and Accessibility 88. With more time I would have improved accessibility to increase the score to be green. This would be done by increasing get colour contrast ratio and including skips links for users. And looked into the best practises error "d oes not use HTTP/2 for all of its resources  — 3 requests not served via HTTP/2".

Introduction I have conducted the final phase of user testing now the product is complete to get feedback on the users final thoughts of the app and other supporting materials. For this, I conducted user observation followed by a short survey. User Feedback User 1: Very easy to navigate the application The interface design is clear and visually appealing Great colour scheme and useful to have social media links What do you think the aim of the app is?  The aim of the app is to bring women coders together and get more women into tech by learning coding basics.  Who do you think the target audience is of this app?  Women who aspire to get into the tech industry or want to learn a new skill What is your favourite feature of the app and why? I love the quizzes on the home page as they were fun to complete and test learning. What would you improve on the app? Getting notifications and updates when new content is added.  ...

I have been constantly interacting with the followers and potential users of Codability. I have now created an AR filter, the aim of the filter is to build the community of women coders on the various social platforms as well as on the app. We encourage users/followers to:  1. Take a picture use the filter  2. Tag Codability  3. Share on your story or send to Codability  This enables to create a community of women coders. I have created a highlight on Instagram to add all users/followers who have sent in their pictures.  Moreover, I have created a competition which was launched on the 1st - 6th May for followers/users to get creative with our filter. All entries are added to the "Competition" highlight on Instagram.  The winner was announced today, it was great to see so many followers trying out the filter and sending their pictures in. Many people got creative with our filter which is why this user one the competition with their origi...

In my first blog post "initial idea" I highlighted I would like to look into Augmented Reality (AR) software and technology for the project. In order to increase social engagement from the feedback from my prototype I decided to create my own Codability filter which is available on the social media platforms. For this, I found and experimented with Spark AR Studio which states  "expand your digital creative skills. Learn the ins and outs of building augmented reality effects with step-by-step guides and video tutorials" (Spark AR Studio, 2020).  Augmented reality is an interface experience where objects that exist in the real world are enhanced by technology. "AR represents the cutting edge of modern society's social technological development" (Yuen et al., 2011, p.123). Ludwig and Reimann (2005) discuss in this article the potential AR applications fall into three main categories: (a) presentation and visualisation, (b) industry, and ...

The feedback I got from the prototype inspired me to do some more research into the coding challenges available on apps. I identified three main competitors at the start of the project: Mimo, Codecademy Go and SoloLearn. Therefore, I decided to look into the structure and style of their coding challenges.  Mimo Mimo's coding challenges allow you to unlock different levels and is split into different areas. It shows the progress of each section at the bottom via the progress bar and any streaks you have in the top right corner. You can only move onto the next challenge when completing the first one as the second is greyed out currently. Codecademy Go Codecademy's Go coding challenges allow you to click and drag certain elements to complete the challenges in a linear flow. You can click on any of the available section and follow the process the same. SoloLearn SoloLearn's coding challenges are through interactive courses and they have an indication of ...