In my recent designs created with Figma, I focused on accessibility by selecting a harmonious color palette that enhances usability. I aimed for a clean and intuitive layout, ensuring a seamless user experience. Additionally, I experimented with Figma’s variables to create dynamic components and established consistent styles for fonts and colors. This approach not only streamlined the design process but also allowed for greater flexibility and coherence throughout the project.

Smart Shop is a client-side JavaScript application that enables users to create shopping lists that are organized by purchase priority. React has been utilized for UI development and Firebase for both database and hosting.

The app was created in an agile working environment with three other developers, using Github to collaborate on code changes, manage version control, and coordinate tasks through issues and pull requests. Three mentors were readily available to offer advice and guidance, providing valuable insights and support throughout the development process, and ensuring the team stayed on track with project goals and best practices.

This project was completed through The Collab Lab, a foundation providing a structured environment for early-career developers to gain practical experience by working on real-world projects. Through collaboration and hands-on mentorship, participants develop technical and soft skills essential for success in the software industry. The Collab Lab serves as a valuable stepping stone for aspiring developers to launch their careers.

This app serves as a comprehensive guide to restaurants, activities, and 'must-tries' in my hometown of Cairns, Australia. Users can easily explore and mark experiences as completed once they've enjoyed an item from the cards. Additionally, they have the freedom to contribute by adding new items—simply by providing a title, the recommender's name, and an image link.

The application itself was crafted in Visual Studio Code, leveraging HTML, CSS and Vanilla JavaScript, along with the powerful frameworks Express and Node.js. To facilitate seamless data interaction, SQL is adeptly utilized to engage with a Heroku database.

The wireframes, meticulously designed using Figma, provided a solid blueprint for the application's user interface, ensuring a user-friendly experience.

This app empowers users to effectively manage their personal book collection, offering a platform to track books on their bookshelf. As the app evolves, users will be able to seamlessly augment their collection with notes and memorable quotes.

My journey with this project marked my inaugural experience with React and Bit.io, two technologies that enhanced the application's dynamism. I harnessed the capabilities of Node.js, Express, and SQL to create a robust foundation. The incorporation of CSS brought to life the wireframes that were created in Figma.

This venture also marked a pivotal moment in my development journey: I successfully embraced the useContext hook. It served as a bridge for securely transmitting authentication credentials from the server to the client, elevating both security and efficiency.

Moreover, this project introduced me to the realm of crafting login systems and authentication mechanisms—an invaluable addition to my skill set.

Upon completing my journey at Devmountain, I joined forces with fellow graduate Christina Woodhams to embark on our first collaborative project. Our previous projects had involved servers, but this time, we aimed to craft a serverless application. This choice allowed us to concentrate on refining the front-end developer skills we've cultivated. Additionally, we took the opportunity to experiment with Tailwind CSS as an alternative to traditional CSS. We decided on hosting our portfolios on the Netlify platform.

The experience of collaborating with Christina on this venture was truly fulfilling, allowing me to thrive within a collaborative environment. Our collaboration has ignited a multitude of creative ideas for future projects, and we're excited to bring them to life in the coming months.

Promptopia is a platform designed to streamline AI prompt usage by allowing you to easily copy and paste prompts into other applications, like ChatGPT. After finishing my Dev Portfolio project, I wanted to practice building another serverless application and therefore experimented using Next.js. A tutorial by JavaScript Mastery assisted me in executing this project and introduced me to some of Next.js features; such as file-system based Routing, Client-side and Server-side Rendering with Client and Server components and simplified data fetching with async/await for Server Components.

OAuth was used for User Authentication. MongoDB was implemented as a cloud based database and interacted with using the Node.js library Mongoose. Deployment was managed using Vercel.

So where from here? I plan to use the functionality of this application to build a clone that can be used to store study ‘post-it notes’ on the topics I am currently studying that revolve around frontend software engineering. This clone project will allow me to further practice not only using Next.js, but React, JavaScript, CSS and other mentioned products and libraries