MARK | Devpost

Inspiration

Vancouver has many beautiful hiking trails, yet many people have never gone on a hike. Perhaps it's the intimidation of starting out or not knowing where to begin. At MARK, we advocate for hiking as a profound way to nurture both body and mind. Hiking allows you to wind down from bustling city life, connect with friends through exercise, and revel in the tranquil beauty of nature.

What it does

MARK is a one-stop shop for beginner and veteran hikers to learn about hiking trails, discover the best hiking apparel, search for hiking gear, and get real reviews and advice from our community. Users can also collect badges, save trails and apparel they are interested in, and shop directly through our site.

How we built it

Together, our team collaborated to brainstorm innovative ideas, crafting a comprehensive product plan that encompassed all desired features. To better understand the barriers preventing individuals from hiking, we conducted extensive user research. Armed with insights, we devised solutions to incentivize and simplify the hiking experience. With a robust plan in place, we divided into teams, each focusing on implementing a distinct feature. MARK is a website built on React and designed on Figma, ensuring seamless functionality and aesthetic appeal.

Challenges we ran into

Building MARK was our first time developing a fully-fledged product and using React. With no previous experience, we encountered numerous challenges, grappling with the nuances of React syntax, designing layouts to our liking, and implementing functional features. Additionally, our limited proficiency in animating elements on Figma required us to rely extensively on online tutorials and resources to create our envisioned features.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As a team, we are proud of developing a resource that encourages people to care for their well-being and highlights the beautiful nature around us. We are also proud of ourselves for building our first React website! This project was a big learning curve for all of us and we have learnt so much about web development and design. Although we came into this without any knowledge of React and limited experience with Figma, we have come out more confident to develop future projects.

What we learned

We learned that creating a structured plan is important for working efficiently as a team. Ensuring that everyone shares the same understanding of our project's goals and comprehends their roles makes the development process much smoother. Additionally, we honed our technical skills in React, Figma, CSS, and even delved into 3D design using Blender.

What's next for MARK

In the future, we hope to implement the backend for the community page so that users can interact with each other. Furthermore, we're eager to enhance the retail dimension of our app by establishing strategic partnerships with businesses and fostering smoother transactions and interactions between merchants and customers. Elevating the user experience is at the forefront of our priorities, and as part of this commitment, we're gearing up to introduce innovative features such as live mapping. With this feature, users can effortlessly explore trails on an interactive map and monitor their progress in real time, amplifying their overall experience on our platform.