As part of my course, we were asked to create a MVP in a short space of time. There were several options but I went for a weather app that consumed data from an API and displayed it to the user. We needed 3 features and it had to include a graph.
I focused on the key functionality that I could turn around in a short period of time given the constraints. Users can select a campus from a dropdown and see the current weather, wind speed, alerts, and a five-day forecast. I kept the features simple to make sure I could complete in time.
Working on this project alongside my studies and other work commitments was a challenge. Finding time to plan, code, and test meant I had to prioritise the essentials, If I were doing this “properly” I’d have had more upfront planning, may well have gone for TypeScript rather than plain old JS and would have spent more time on my file structure, keeping css seperate for example rather than defaulting to inline styling for speed. balancing the deadline and learning new technologies while keeping the project thing on track for Friday was difficult but I think I managed to cover the deliverables.
In terms of data, the backend fetches weather data from OpenWeatherMap and sends only what the frontend needs, the openweathermap api returns a huge amout of information so I’ve chosen to preprocess this at the backend. Campus coordinates are stored in a small object, and the backend formats dates, limits the forecast to five days, and includes alerts if present. The frontend renders data dynamically based on campus and language selection.
Overall, I’m happy with what I’ve produced, although there is scope for improvement. Layout has some minor alignment issues when displaying side to side, the graph could be presented better and other features, such as wind speed for the week, would be a useful addition.
Once I’ve figured out how to host it here it will appear at kennethdouglas.net/weather !