Introduction

OurMemory is a web-based activity souvenir album generator, which make the process of resource sharing, gathering and sorting more easily. It is a multi-user real-time collaborative platform implemented by Node.js and express. Our goal is to help participants to share the feelings and resources along with the activity, in order to generate a more vivid album.

Motivation

We all have experienced some memorable group activities, such as volunteer works, academic field trips, supporting education in remote area, summer schools, etc. During the activities, which usually last several days, participants always like to take photos and videos to record the special moments with others by using their smartphones or cameras. When the activities are finished, people prefer to make a souvenir album including text, photos and even videos to keep as a souvenir.

Problem

• Time-consuming
The gathering process can be time-consuming to wait for all the resources being uploaded from all the participants.
• Resources need to be re-ordered based on time-line
After everyone uploaded, one person is assigned to re-order the resources based on the time-line.
• Some resources are omitted
It can be always hard to all of the photos being taken afterwards. Thus, some resources are easily omitted.
• Emotions are hard to record afterwards
We all know the fact that the emotions at a certain moment, such as exciting, upsetting and feeling of happiness are hard to repeat and record afterwards.

Function

Sitemap Overview

Interface Design

Implement

Architecture
Back-end: Node.js+Express
Front-end: HTML & CSS in bootstraps framework

During the whole MVP implementation process, we have run into many difficulties. The biggest one is realising the upload function in the same page. The form POST methods and socket methods have been tried. The upload function can be realised when the file is uploaded onto a different page. Moreover, in order to avoid the override problem, we generate the file name by adding the exact uploading time.

Redesign is coming...

When we were doing this groupware project, the main issue we considered about was technical one, so our interface design was limited by my programming skill to be honest. There were so many un-friendly design points in this web-interface, for example, there was no way to get back to index from album overview. Moreover, the main idea of this web product should be let users co-browse/edit during the whole sharing process but not only chatting part. Therefore, I would like to do a re-design of this web product and it would also be a good chance to practice my UI design skills.