Music Match

Overview

For the final project of ICS 314, we had to combine all of our newfound skills and knowledge into designing, implementing, and deploying a web application. Thus, my group and I created Music Match, a web application that allows users to register and create an account, browse for other users with similar music interests or goals, post their favorite music as well as browse music that other users have posted.

Contributions

My contributions to the application involved front-end development for the My Profile, Edit Profile, and My Jams pages. This includes designing the layout of the pages and setting up basic functionality to be further developed later. Additionally, I did some back-end development for specific components such as the search bar functionality and redirects for the View Profile button on the Browse Users page and Save Changes button on the My Profile page. Also, I helped with some minor tasks throughout the project such as fixing links and editing the project home page to reflect our project’s current status.

Experience

I have worked on group projects for ICS in past semesters but this project was by far the largest in scale, complexity, and difficulty. It was very intimidating at first because I felt like the task was somewhat daunting and that I would not be able to produce the results I needed to. However, we had a lot of communication between us, which I feel was probably our strongest asset, and I was able to overcome this fear. That being said, one of the most important things I’ve learned from this project, besides skills related to software engineering and web application development, was that frequent and efficient communication is the key to success. Additionally, I learned that having deadlines and deliverables are important to stay on schedule throughout the project. Like some students, I sometimes have trouble managing my time and so having a tool such as the GitHub Project Boards was extremely helpful in managing my time. If I could do this project again, I would take more initiative in assigning myself tasks and once again manage my time more efficiently by starting on tasks earlier so I can ask for help or do research earlier. Nonetheless, I am grateful for this experience and I will definitely carry what I’ve learned and hope to improve on into my next project.

Organization GitHub page available here.

Live app available here.