Live Site: https://www.thoughtful.day/
Thoughtful.day will be a journaling platform where users will be able to use different types of journaling templates.
Thoughtful.day will be a journaling platform that utilizes templates to help people document
their daily experience and personal growth in a private, secure digital space. Users can create
profiles, customize their settings, pick different templates, and begin to write their
entries, which can be tagged, organized, and found using an easy-to-navigate user
interface.
- People who like to journal
- People interested in mental health
- Students interested in keeping a research journal
- Professionals who want to keep a work journal for self or manager assessments
- Writers who want to setup prompts for themselves
- As a user, I want to have guided prompts to help me journal
- As a user, I want to be able to tag my entries
- As a user, I want to have inspirational quotes to be put in the right mindset to journal
- As a user, my entries should be dated for searching purposes
- As a user, my entries should be searchable for reminiscing purposes
- Allow users to create an account, log in, and log out securely
- Provide users the ability to add a journal entry
- Allow users to tag journal entries
- Generate inspirational quotes on top of an entry provided by a third-party API
- Ability to delete journal entries
- Ability to edit journal entries
- Search functionality to go through entry
- Light/Dark mode
- Ability to start another journal type (A work journal would be next)
- Other journal type would need new template prompts and possible removal of quote section
- Share ability to be enacted based on journal type
- Ability to create template from form
- Java Script
- HTML
- CSS
- Express
- Node (sequelize, ejs, crypto-js)
- Postgres
- Data API
I will be using https://api.themotivate365.com/stoic-quote to retrieve stoicism quotes. The API provides a simple quote and author database and can provide one every day.
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Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/juanedcabrera/thoughtful.day.git
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Navigate to the project directory: cd to the repository
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Install the required dependencies: npm i cookie-parser crypto-js method-override nodemon
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Create a .env file at the root of the project and fill in the necessary environment variables: PORT=8000 ENC_KEY=key (For key you should put whichever key string you want to use in VARCHAR format)
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Start the server Go to directory and hit nodemon
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Open the browser and go to http://localhost:8000
The aim of this journal project was to create a platform where users can journal, choose different journals, and have guided prompts. To achieve this goal, we adopted an iterative and user-centered design approach, which involved several key steps.
Firstly, I conducted research to gain a deeper understanding of our target users and their needs. This involved conducting user interviews, surveys, and analyzing existing journals and mental health apps. Based on our findings, I developed user personas and defined our design goals and requirements.
Next, I created wireframes and prototypes of the journal platform, which I tested with potential users to gather feedback and refine our designs. I also conducted usability testing to ensure that the platform was easy to use and understand.
Once I had finalized the design, I developed the platform using modern technologies, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Express and Node.js. I also implemented user authentication and database integration to ensure that users could securely and easily save and access their journal entries.
Finally, I launched the platform and gathered feedback from early users to continue improving the design and functionality. Throughout the project, I focused on creating a user-centered and accessible platform that empoIrs users to take control of their emotional wellbeing.
I think this was a very challenging project that involved front and back end technologies that were tough to wrap my head around. I think the biggest piece is the realization that writing code more and more, whether I fully understood it or not, helped me learn intensely. It was a week of full breakthroughs with Express and node as well Sequelize and deployment.