People spend more and more time on their smartphones. They spend time on social media, play games, chat via dating applications. Yet do these people truly forge real social relationships? Play2meetyou made that possible.
Thoughts.
Are people truly connected?
The problem
Social applications are used by millions of people and are the most downloaded from stores. A group of friends and I noticed that a lot of people played games on their smartphones, and were sometimes physically close to each other but were never actually playing together. Worse even, some may be playing the same game without even realising it.
Brainstorming
We thought it could be interesting to connect these people so they could finally start playing together. Play2meetyou is a mobile application that connects people located near to each other through mini-games; our goal being to enable people to meet in a different context. Mini-games are fun and help break the ice. It is easier to start a conversation and meet the person in real life.
Team
Who are we?
Clement Le Biez Front-end developer 
Guillaume Brosse Back-end developer 
Marc-Antoine Babe Front-end developer 
Kevin Bizien Creative developer 
Victor Gouzher Designer illustrator My role
I am personally involved in the application’s design, integration, API development and project management. I regularly organise agile feedback sessions (every two months on average).
Process.
From ideas to development.
Project management
This project was a way for us to familiarise ourselves with team-based project management. We apply agile methods and ensure good communication within the team, regularly convene to talk about our recent work and make sure group dynamics and cohesion stay strong.
We work with Trello to manage our tasks, use Slack for its instant messaging and are always connected.
Design & development
We developed the application using Cordova - a technology enabling us to only develop one code base for all mobile operating systems. Our stack is 100% Javascript, with AngularJS and NodeJS.
Git is another extremely important technology in our work process. I cannot imagine our workflow without a version management system.
Zoom on my work: NodeJs and Sass
I mainly worked on the development of the NodeJS API with Guillaume. I implemented a Node-starter with an ExpressJS light framework, the SequelizeJS ORM and the PassportJS middleware for authentication. Take a look at the case study here.
Simultaneously, I worked on the application’s design and integration with Marc-Antoine. Our workflow was managed by Gulp and we used Sass as a pre-processor. We developed reusable UI components throughout the entire application.
Brief technical overview
- NodeJs, ExpressJs, SequelizeJs, MySQL
- Socket IO
- Cordova
- AngularJs
- Sass
- Gulp
- Git
Retrospective.
Feedback and lessons learnt.
What I learnt
We were only students when we started developing this application. I discovered technologies such as AngularJS, and vastly improved my Javascript skills - especially with NodeJS. This project served as a basis for the creation of the Node-starter.
I learnt a great deal in terms of team-based development, particularly regarding code management with Git.
In addition to boosting my technical skills, I got better at agile project management and organised my very first agile feedback sessions. This was crucial for our team, to keep motivation strong.
Kevin Bizien
UI Designer & Creative Developer
Want to tell me about your web project? Contact me at bonjour@kevinbizien.com and we can start talking soon!