Project Conclusion
This is it… The 359th post. This is (probably) going to be the last post of my university life. It has been a long and hard journey that had its ups and downs.
Through the duration of this project, I noticed the biggest change in how I was handling the workload. I noticed how much faster I was creating my illustrations, how much more efficiently I was dealing with coding problems regarding HTML & CSS and how much better my app and website design was looking.
But one change that I am very proud of is my typing. I used to write with very advanced words that were making my written content harder to read. This changed when I listened to Dan’s explanation of why doing this was unnecessary. This change is very meaningful for me, I feel like my typing is much more “personal” now not only in my blog posts but even in everyday conversations on social media. It also means I am spending less time writing because I’m no longer double-checking if my sentences make sense. I know they do because I write them as I think of them instead of dwelling on how to make them longer.
Even before I started university, I wanted to create a boxing app/website that would advance the sport forward. I wanted to make a boxing project that was innovative, motivational, fun and educational. Now my biggest dream has been accomplished. Like I mentioned before, so many people give up the sport after just a few sessions. Motivation, fear and seeing others do so well are all valid reasons why people feel discouraged to come back into boxing clubs. This does not mean the end however; I still want to launch the app within the App Store(s). To do this however, I still have to include video tutorials to make the app much more effective in the teaching stage and I still want to add a lot more sessions. I want the app to last a lot longer than the initial 24-day introductory period, I have already half-achieved this with the introduction of the challenge mode but more needs to be done!
The biggest advantage for me was that I played to my strengths with this project; I mixed my passion for design & boxing to create this app. I knew what newcomers to the sport needed and had coaches, participants and martial arts forums to turn to for help. My project was driven on feedback and understanding and I feel this makes the app unique.
The biggest weakness of the project is that I wanted to quickly advance to the prototyping stage. I feel like I could have focused more on sketching more interfaces, trying out different monograms and playing around more with different colours. This weakness was reduced by the fact that I experimented with the app layout, colour, fonts and monograms later on which led to that huge rehaul and changed the apps direction. I can’t help but think what the outcome would be had I stayed longer in the sketching phase. I’m interested in this because the updated app idea came along when I was experimenting with the digital wireframes.
In conclusion, the project has been a big success in my eyes. Not only am I proud of the work I have done but I am also happy with how much I have progressed myself. The project has exceeded all expectations I had, I can proudly say that this app is something that can function in the real world like any other professionally designed app. That is a huge win for me, and hopefully for the boxing community it will be too.