Day-4: Finalized Project and set up the initial wireframes

Today is April 27, 2023, and I'm super excited to announce that I've finalized my project idea for Hackfest 2023. My plan is to create a Chrome extension for Showwcase that will redesign the platform's interface, making it more accessible and user-friendly.

By installing this small extension on your browser, you'll be able to explore all of Showwcase's features, including communities, trending shows, notifications, and more. While the extension won't have all the features of a full-fledged application, it will enable you to post threads, explore shows etc. The name that I thought for this extension is "ShowwcaseXS" as I am creating a mini Showwcase and "XS" means small.

Have also created a few logo designs for ShowwcaseXS. Let me show you here:

I have finalized the last one 🙂

My main challenge here will be redesigning Showwcase's interface to fit within the limited space of a Chrome extension, while still ensuring that it's intuitive and visually appealing. When it comes to UI/UX I am very choosy with the design I build because I firmly believe that the design of an application shows how well the creator of the application has understood the use case and users of the tool.

I did think of a design for this Chrome Extension and I created a few wireframes on Excalidraw, which is a design tool.

Apart from this I also explored how to create a Chrome extension using JavaScript and also using react by following some Youtube tutorials. I found that the most important file when you are creating a Chrome extension is manifest.json. All configurations for the Chrome extension lie in this particular file so I have to explore more on this. 

I followed some more YouTube tutorials to learn the basics of creating an extension, but building the extension with the side bar and the design I have in mind might be a bit tricky. The primary concern here  is building a functional sidebar instead of a popup for the extension button. However, I haven't found any relevant resources online that can provide me with the exact information I need to create the sidebar. It appears that I'll need to dive into the Chrome extension documentation to build this beast.