Emotional Support Butterflies is a website where individuals who are social-distancing can virtually express their gratitude for medical professionals and essential employees working throughout the covid-19 pandemic in real-time. The message we hope to convey to essential employees during this time of social-distancing is "We Are With You." For more information, please read the project overview section.
Visit the Emotional Support Butterflies website here.
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AdobeXD - A digital design platform used for UI, mobile, web and icon design
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Illustrator - Vector graphics editor developed by Adobe Inc for design
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JavaScript - A programming language that allows you to implement complex features on web pages
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Node.js - An open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript runtime environment that executes JavaScript code outside of a web browser
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React.js - JavaScript library for building user interfaces
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Socket.io - Socket.IO enables real-time, bidirectional and event-based communication
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HTML/CSS - Two core technologies for building Web pages. HTML provides the structure of the page, and CSS the (visual and aural) layout, for a variety of devices
The site is under developmment. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.
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Katharine Francis - Full Stack Software Engineer, React/Redux, Node and Express
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Genesis Valencia - Jr. Software Engineer in Python, and Project Manager
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Karuna Sehgal - Full Stack Software Engineer, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, React
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Laura Paulino - Web Developer and Designer, HTML, CSS, Design, UI
Special thanks to Graphic Designer Miles Nasta for contributing the sticker pack used in this project.
“Mental health is the level of psychological well-being or an absence of mental illness. It is the state of someone who is "functioning at a satisfactory level of emotional and behavioral adjustment.”
The Emotional Support Butterflies project is a webpage where individuals who are social-distancing can virtually express their gratitude for medical professionals and essential employees working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The site allows users to choose from a series of butterfly buttons, each conveying a message of gratitude, and emits the butterfly clicked onto the screen for a few seconds. Each butterfly represents solidarity with essential employees. Users who visit the webpage and click on a button will see their butterfly float around on the page as well as the butterflies of other users interacting with the site at the same time. As more people become active on the site, the page fills up accordingly, creating a flutter of butterflies that remains on display for as long as there is user interaction.
The purpose of this project is to encourage people who are social-distancing to visit the site and click on the buttons as a reminder to essential workers, and especially those in the medical industry, that although the streets are empty, “We Are With You.” The colors chosen for each visual were carefully selected to inspire a feeling of tranquility so that the display of butterflies will be calming for the person viewing or interacting with the page when it is active. We envision that a healthcare professional might open the page on their laptop and leave it running in the background while they work, all while feeling supported and encouraged by the overflow of butterflies and virtual expressions of gratitude from people all over the world.
The inspiration to develop our website came from a desire to recognize and applaud the work of doctors, nurses, healthcare professionals, and essential employees working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experiencing such a rapid cultural shift on a global scale as we work to combat the spread of COVID-19 has been disorienting; we wanted to create something that would help alleviate stress and anxiety as we self- isolate, re-evaluate future plans and preparations, and reflect on the new realities faced by friends, family members, and ourselves. In developing our ideas, we particularly discussed the strenuous work of healthcare professionals who have an increased risk of contracting the virus and, additionally, are struggling with shortages of medical supplies in hospitals. These considerations, alongside the citywide lockdowns throughout the United States and similar initiatives throughout the world, inspired us to design a platform where people can virtually express their gratitude for the people who leave their homes every day to keep our industries running.
Our vision is that the simple design of our website, as well as the visuals produced through user interaction, will relax our feelings of isolation and create an atmosphere of camaraderie and support for the members of society most exposed to the virus.