Inertia
Inertia is a social network for sharing ideas. There are quite a few idea sharing platforms out there for corporations, but none that focus on letting individuals share their ideas with the people they know and trust. I built Inertia from the ground up as my Directed Study for the Interactive Design Program at Capilano University to help people capture, share, and act on their ideas.
- Visit Inertia
- Client: Self-directed
- Role: Concept, Design, & Development
Concept
I've always had a lot of ideas. But just having ideas doesn't do much, you need to turn those ideas into reality. I've found that if I keep an idea to myself I very rarely do anything about it, but if I share it with others I'm more likely to turn it into reality. I had tried capturing ideas as to-do items, blog posts, or notes, but none of those systems was working for me, so I built Inertia as a social method for capturing ideas and sharing them, with the goal that it might help others (and myself) create more of the things we dream up.
Process
Like all projects, Inertia started with sketches. I turned these sketches into wireframes and flowcharts to plot out the features of the site and to keep myself on track as I worked on the development.
Because I was learning how to use PHP & MySQL while I was working on this project, I started by creating static HTML pages for the main pages (home, profile pages, idea pages), and then built in PHP functionality as I learned how to do each step. I received indispensable help on this project from my instructors Matt Anderson and Vivien Anayian.
What I learned
More than anything, this project taught me that I can turn any crazy idea I have into reality (yes, that's kind of meta). I also learned a ton about PHP, MySQL, and the basics of object-oriented programming. Doing so much development helped me see first-hand what the challenges are for coding great experiences, which has helped me immensely in working with developers.