Makeit is a smart to do list to track the progess of a person on a given goal. It is meant as a personal coach to help you pursue your long term goals and dreams. It was developed during AngelHack hackathon 2013. We were a team of 3, 2 developers and 1 product owner. My role was to develop the application and I also came up with the concept and gathered the team around the idea by pitching it in front of the hackathon audience when it started. This was my first hackathon and a memorable experience for me.
I continued working on this application after the hackathon, and redesigned it with a new design at the end of 2013. I really used the application for my personal use and found it really useful to tackle tasks for a long term goal. For example, I had used it to track the activities to do during a trip, it was working very well. Unfortunately I stopped the development when Meteor shut down their online platform where the website was hosted with only 2 weeks notice! That was really upsetting to me, I had lost all my tasks and goals ðŸ˜.
I don't trust Meteor as a reliable technology so I stopped working on it. I later ported this to-do app to the Firebase platform and I still use it for my personal use. I think I will make it public one day.
- Project repository : https://github.com/eloone/makeit
- Project information : http://www.hackathon.io/punkit
Below you will find how it worked, and the rationale of the design concept.
Demo
Design rationale
Pitch
In our world that is becoming highly technological, with all the Internet services being developed and all the information that is made available for everyone, sometimes it feels that finally anything is possible, at a click distance. Yet, when we analyze, we don't do as much as we could because we are constantly distracted and we end up doing a lot of things that don't necesarily bring us the most satisfaction in our lives. What if technology could help us focus on what is important for us and make it happen? This is what Makeit proposes.
Makeit is a smart to do list that helps you focus on tasks that serve your long term goals. Often a long term goal is composed of small actions you take little by little. And without encouragement most of us will get discouraged, distracted, and we will stop pursuing our efforts to achieve our dreams. Makeit shows you the data you need to see to encourage you to continue your efforts in following your goals and dreams. More than a to do list, it is a personal coach and helper to accompany you in your journey of making it happen.
Features
Makeit is made of three main features :
- likeness and difficulty markers
- data visualization
- a reward system
The likeness and difficulty markers in the form of hearts and bolts are meant to mark each task with the user's appreciation. Depending on these markers Makeit will order the tasks differently so that the user feels more likely to complete a given task.
Data visualization shows the users the statistics of their achievements, so that they see what is left to do, what they have already done, and where they have been focusing their efforts so far. This can give them a motivation boost to continue. Makeit also calculates satisfaction points based on the markers to gamify the whole process of getting things done, the more quality tasks you do - tasks that are related to a goal, tasks you like, challenges - the more satisfaction points you get.
Finally the reward system, still very simplistic, congratulates the user on completion of goals, tasks and adapts the reward depending on the user's evaluation of the task - very difficult (a challenge) or very fun (a blast).
Makeit encourages completing tasks associated with a goal so that you focus on tasks that matter and not on tasks that don't contribute to your overall goal.
Design
I developed and designed Makeit (new version), its design stems from the things I found on my desk, also inspired by the colors found in adventure and sport fashion, I picked up positive bright colors to encourage action and motivate the mind.
