As a result of COVID-19 a lot of people, including myself have been mentally affected. Most of the world is currently undergoing self-isolation. This is where everyone isolates themselves from the rest of the world through social distancing. Whether we are sick or not we are all doing this to slow the spread of the disease. If we are sick we need to make sure we don't spread it. But even if we are not we still have to do this. This is taking an increased mental toll on us as a society and this is becoming an increasingly pressing issue. This is impacting all of us and will affect future generations of this world. This is a pressing issue that is often neglected. That is why I decided to focus on resolving it to protect the future of the planet.
This website serves as a way to reduce mental health issues caused by COVID-19. Maintaining our mental health during this time is of utmost importance. This is because otherwise we will be unable to go back to our normal way of life an will be forced to adapt to new circumstances. We need to minimize the impact of the virus and this is the best solution I have found. The most important thing is to make this resource accessible to everyone. This is possible by making it a website that anyone can access anywhere at anytime. It is also free to access and harnesses the power of the community. The home page gives a little intro to the website. Then the community page brigs everyone together as a community. The purpose of this page is to help people build a supportive network to help them get through times like these. The resources page gives people access to various activities and other materials that are being provided to support people such as free online classes or suggestions for yoga. The emergency page is available to help anyone in a critical state as I know every second is precious and having everything in one place can make a big difference. Finally the contact page is just a way for me to make the website better. I have learnt that the best way to design a product is to use the customers feedback and this form will enable me to reach this website to its full potential.
I created a website using HTML, CSS, and PHP to solve this issue. All the static parts of the website were made with HTML. These are the home, resources, and emergency pages. I did research on the mental and emotional impact that this virus has and what are the best, most efficient ways to reduce that impact. I used the PHP for the backend parts of the website. The HTML served as the vase layout but I combined it with PHP for the community and contact pages to accommodate the dynamic parts of the page. The community page collects the information for each comment using PHP and displays it using HTML. The contact page sends the information with PHP to my email address so that I can make updates accordingly. CSS is also used for styling the website and making it physically appealing and easy to use. I used Visual Studio and Brackets as editors while making my website to preview it before launching. I then used 000webhost to host it so that I can out it into action.
During the time in which I was creating this website I ran into a few issues with PHP. I am relatively new to PHP and had to pick up new skills as I went through the web designing process. However, after the initial struggle it became a lot more easier to use. I also ran into the difficulty of finding a way to host my website. A lot of services only host static websites. However, my website uses PHP which makes the website dynamic. However, after a while I was able to find 000webhost which allows a user to host one website free with PHP.
I am proud of my accomplishments with PHP and my development with back end. I had no knowledge of it before. However, now I know how to harness it and appreciate the value of this tool. This is a useful skill that I have picked up and am proud of. I have never built a dynamic site before and this has given me knew experience that I can use for future projects.
I learned how to use PHP and the value of this language. I learnt how to integrate PHP with HTML and CSS, allowing for a website that combines the skills of front end and back end languages. I gained a better understanding of how machines and programs work to create the final project that the user sees. I also learnt more about SQL though I did not get enough time to implement my knowledge to create a large-scale application.
The next step for this website would be to move the data from the community section to a database and to incorporate SQL into the code to make it more efficient to handle larger amounts of data. Currently the system that was made using PHP for this is not as efficient as desired but works for small amounts of data. I also hope to make the community section more like a web forum with the help of an SQL database. This will allow for more organized and larger quantities of chats. I would also like to create a system where people can log in to the website such that registered users can get personalized advice for their situation from professionals. I hope to move it to a larger scale as well, hopefully global, so that I can spread the impact. It is crucial that we maintain our mental health through times like these.