A mobile app created using Ionic that allows families who live apart to vote on their favourite meals cooked by each individual. Will you be the kai king of your whanau?
When I lived at home with my younger brother and Dad, dinner time was always a time where we would come together as a family. Over the preparation of ingredients and frying of falafel, we would share stories and really talk to one another for perhaps the only time that day. Food was used as a median and excuse to bring us together, and when I return home, a home cooked meal always unites us again. Now that my younger brother and I have both moved out of home, I’ve found that the moments of connection between my brother, Dad, and I have become more scarce. Despite the distance that now separates us, I would like to still be able to experience the same evening bonding over meals, even if we can’t all be at the same table.
By combining the popularity of cooking shows such as Master Chef, My Kitchen Rules, and The Great British Bake Off with the global trend of food photography on social media, ‘The Kai King’ connects families across the globe.
It is the afternoon of this projects deadline, and while my app doesn't have all of the bells and whistles I ambitiously set out to include, I am satisfied that it meets the requirements of a first iteration app. Having learnt a lot about how to work using an agile methodology, I was pleased with my own progress and the final output. It's not finished, but it's a working, usable app, with a clear purpose and trajectory.
- Plan your database beforehand - this was the key reason I was unable to implement my final 'voting' feature. With one week left, I realised that to implement voting I would need to re-structure my entire database, effecitvely re-doing my whole app. Instead of doing this, I decided to balance up the rest of my university work, focus on the quality of UX, and treat this as a first iteration.
- Include weekly reviews - in such a short time frame, revieiwng at the end of each week was instrumental in terms of me being able to finish on time and not put my other course work at risk.
- Test your app - give your app to your friends to test. Unfortuantely this wasn't something that I was able to do heaps of; in the end, I just asked those around me when I finished. In the future, I would aim to finish a week early to spend the next week implementing user feedback.