A quick update tonight. Murphy updated the main screen style, adding the list of "thank you"s in. He talks a bit about input method ideas and asks for feedback from listeners at https://anchor.fm/murphy-can-app Screenshots of progress: https://tppr.me/CRwrE https://tppr.me/jyg3Z
Murphy talks about getting design inspiration from other apps, finds and adds a new font, and adds art to the home screen.
Murphy works on the input screen for saving new reminders. He gets it working, but it doesn't look great.
# What to expect from this podcast: - Short episodes released often. - No editing at all. - No cursing. - My thoughts and experiences while I’m developing this app on the side. # About the app: - A simple app to help people be more aware of gratitude. - Written in ReasonML. - Written using React Native. - Developed on top of Expo. # Talking points in this episode: - UX design is hard. - I started with a UI library, but it didn’t solve my design problems. I didn’t know where to put things on the screen. - Kind of like handing someone a pencil and expecting them to be good at drawing, or a coloring book and expecting them to be able to paint a lovely picture on top of it. - I purchased the book [Refactoring UI: The Book](https://refactoringui.com/book/) and read it. Mind blown. - The last three or four days I’ve spent experimenting and refining the look of the screen that shows recorded thanks. Here was the progression: - Started with a linear list of cards, each one showing the text from the “thanks”. - Then grouped the cards by day, with a friendly “X days ago” text header for each day, and cards beneath. - I added buttons for deleting, marking as “thanked” and sending thanks to each card. - I got advice from my boss at work to reduce the button count. - Last night I added a tab bar at the bottom of the window that blurs the background behind it, and I removed all buttons from the card, featuring the content text, showing the exact date at time at the bottom in dimmed text, and offering a “more” button, to be able to perform some actions.