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Compelling Question:
Compelling Question:
When designing an app, what is the balance between including more functionality and making it seem useful versus keeping the app clean, simple, and comfortable to use?
When designing an app, what is the balance between including more functionality and making it seem useful versus keeping the app clean, simple, and comfortable to use?
Learning/Product Goal
Learning/Product Goal
I have chosen to learn and use Ionic.
Ionic is a framework that provides a system of commonly used components to help you build your app on top of existing development systems.
It uses HTML and CSS, which are both languages I am familiar with.
It also uses Angular, which I may have to learn along the way.
It also will make my app cross platform between Android and iOS devices, which is an additional benefit I was not expecting.
Conveniently, there is also a LinkedIn Learning course for Ionic. It is rather advanced for me, but I am managing to hold on. I have made about an hour of progress on it already.
This is the practice app that I have built so far going through the course.
It is by no means easy; as you can see my workspace when all out developing is a lot to take in. However, I think I am getting the hang of it slowly.
This Week
This Week
I began by testing a few other solutions that I found online. At my dad's suggestion, I retried Adobe Phonegap (the one from the first week that wouldn't start) and turns out my problem happened to a lot of people online as well. There is a very long GitHub thread for this same issue, and despite a lot of discussion, it doesn't seem like they figured it out. (See Fig. 1)
None of the suggested solutions did not work for me, nor did they work for everybody else there. Looks like that was a dead end.
So the rest of the week was spent setting up Ionic.
Ionic isn't actually a standalone program with all the features needed to make and app, its a framework that builds off multiple other programs. Installation of all these was not easy. I had to install several programs, and then dig really deep into my computer to set them up. For the first time in my life, I began using command line. This is something knew I would have to eventually start, and now I am. I am completely unfamiliar with it so I will have to rely on the LinkedIn course and my dad to learn.
Fig 3. Windows Powershell and GitBash, both command line terminals. Yes, it is very scary.
Fig 2. A few of the many things I had to install to get Ionic up and running.
On Track?
On Track?
I think I might be now. I have found a (somewhat) simpler way to develop my app. The LinkedIn course I am going through right now is only 4 hours. I didn't even really try this week but I have already finished about an hour of it. However, if I end up having to learn Angular, I might have to take another 4 hour course on it. I am hoping that my Javascript skills and understanding of basic programming concepts will be enough.
Next Actions
Next Actions
By next checkpoint, I will have at least half of the LinkedIn Course completed.
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