View Demo

Overview

Meet is an elegant, single-page application designed to help users discover and explore upcoming tech-related events hosted by CareerFoundry in their city. It offers a platform for users to find events that align with their tech interests and network with other professionals in the field. This user-friendly app makes staying informed and connected within the tech community easily.

Purpose and Context

Meet was developed as a personal portfolio project during a web development course at CareerFoundry. The primary purpose of this project was to demonstrate the practical application of integrating third-party libraries and APIs using modern web development libraries. This case study showcases the skills and knowledge acquired in the course, highlighting the ability to create a functional and user-friendly web application that addresses real-world needs.

Objectives

The objective was to create the Meet platform, enabling effortless discovery and engagement with local events. A user-friendly interface was developed to facilitate easy event searches and access to detailed information.

Process

Client Side:

The front end, developed using React, focused on creating a responsive and visually appealing interface. City-based event searching functionality was implemented, with data being fetched from the Google Calendar API, and PWA features were incorporated for offline access.

Backend:

AWS Lambda was employed to establish a scalable and cost-effective backend. Serverless functions were designed to fetch event data responsively.

Why a serverless function?

Serverless: No backend maintenance, easy to scale, always available, no cost for idle time.

Technologies used:

react

css3

javascript

aws

recharts

momentjs

gh-pages

puppeteer

jest-cucumber

Feel free to look at the source code in the Github’s Repository .

Key Functionalities and Page Views:

Retrospective

Completing the Meet project demonstrated the potential of serverless architecture and PWA and SPA design. The TDD approach ensured the reliability of the code, resulting in a platform that effectively combined user-centric design with advanced technology..

Challenges

The biggest challenge involved integrating Google’s authorization and adhering to their privacy policy, essential for enabling user logins to the application.

Successes

Thanks to the extensive documentation provided for each technology, the API calendar, OAuth, and AWS serverless integration were achieved successfully. This allowed for a seamless connection between the application and the necessary services for user authentication and event management.

Future Steps

Expanding the platform’s capabilities to fetch events from various providers and organizers, broadening the scope of accessible activities for users.

Final Thoughts

I am proud of successfully building such a complex application with modern technologies and learning how web applications perform behind the scenes, particularly regarding SPA design and data visualization.