Crowdsourced Library
Industry
Design Industry
country
Netherlands
Our client’s goal was to gather a community of designers on a platform where they can share some relevant design topics and sub-topics, contribute with and vote for tips on various published materials, suggest useful resources and links, see some general statistics and personal stats, and enjoy a gamification part of the system. It was meant to be a knowledge-sharing service for designers with complex yet handy functionality.
OTAKOYI’s contribution to this project included the assistance with business and goals analysis, development of a decent frontend, and completely custom backend for both User Interface and Admin Portal. Finally, OTAKOYI conducted thorough quality assurance and project management services.
Challenges Faced
The most challenging aspect of this project was the development of a hierarchy of entities, which consisted of topics, sub-topics, and tips. These are the key elements of the web application, where the highest level of ranking is a topic, which can endlessly be divided into various sub-topics. Each of the sub-topics, in turn, includes tips written by designer community members. The platform required a delicate and skillful approach to the taxonomy to make the navigation easy and simple for users.
Besides that, the platform had to provide a complex search system that is aimed to optimize the search results. The aim was to create a search system that can be customized to fit a user’s needs and quickly find the necessary tip or topic to solve the issue.
These were the most difficult technical aspects that required a smart development approach and clean code.
Admin Portal
Moreover, one of the greatest achievements was the implementation of the Admin Portal. This feature is not a separate service, but it is a sub-service inside the website. Admin Portal endows some of the users with a right to moderate content on the website. Not every user has access to the Portal: one has to gain a certain amount of karma points for that.
Admin Portal works fast, since it loads itself progressively. Furthermore, it does not overload the website because it was created from the elements that were specifically designed for this platform. In a nutshell, Admin Portal was created from the elements of the UI and pieces of code that were used to create the website.
Besides that, the platform had to provide a complex search system that is aimed to optimize the search results. The aim was to create a search system that can be customized to fit a user’s needs and quickly find the necessary tip or topic to solve the issue.
These were the most difficult technical aspects that required a smart development approach and clean code.
OUR APPROACH
During the working process, we used flexible development methodologies. As the work on the project proceeded, the client continuously provided us with feedback and remarks, which our team carefully considered and implemented milestone after milestone.
Besides, our cooperation was divided into sprint meetings, where we constantly discussed work progression and shared the results of the completed tasks. It allowed us to build a solid client-provider relationship where there is a great degree of trust.
FEATURES IMPLEMENTED
As for the technology stack, we used Laravel, Nuxt.js, and MySQL, which allowed us to realize the following features:
VALUE DELIVERED
Designer’s Platform is a treasure trove of useful tips for designers. It is a handy platform where the designer's community can share their ideas and experiences with each other, accumulating and increasing knowledge.
OTAKOYI successfully overcame all challenges along the development process and delivered a polished, high-quality product to our client. Our team remained attentive to the client’s remarks and wishes till the very end of the project and completed 100% of the requirements. As a result, we managed to build one more lasting and fruitful partnership.
EXPERIENCE GAINED
This question-and-answer platform was a challenging yet exciting project that OTAKOYI is delighted to take part in. Our team managed to implement complex functionality and turn it into a satisfying experience for the users. We even learned French a bit, since the final product was launched in French!
We hope that our newly gained knowledge connected with the hierarchy of entities and search system development will soon bear its fruits in another interesting project!