A Summer at Zirous

As interns at Zirous, we were given the task of building a minimum viable product for a new internal project, eventually named Knackle. Knackle is a web application that promotes productivity and collaboration. It will be an all-in-one, social organization tool that allows a group to create and execute a plan together. The goal of the minimum viable product is to build a proof of concept application that demonstrates the main features: flows, tasks, and collaboration. It will be used to measure interest in the core functionality of the product and to get feedback from initial users. The knowledge gained from the minimum viable product will be a great asset to Zirous when deciding whether or not to commit resources into continuing development of a final product.
In order to create the minimum viable product, we had to investigate and use technologies that were not only new to us but in some cases were new to all Zirous resources. As we were deciding what technologies to use to build Knackle, we evaluated our options on a number of criteria. Considerations included how large the user base was, what kind of learning curve we would need to overcome if the technology was open source and what features it could provide to a web application like Knackle.

One of the main goals for Knackle was to make it responsive and easy to use. Our choice of technologies reflects this goal. AngularJS is a JavaScript framework used to create dynamic web pages that can immediately update based on a user’s actions. We used AngularJS to create the front-end of our application. CSS Bootstrap is a framework that allows a web page to reformat content based on the size of screen being used. This is important to ensure the app is user-friendly, regardless of the device being used.

Working in a large team, we needed a way to share code easily. Git is a version control system that we used to merge our code together and resolve conflicting changes. As a team, this allowed us to work simultaneously without having to worry about other people’s changes impacting any simultaneous work. After some practice, we found Git to be very necessary for this project.

As a group, we have grown during our time here. We’ve learned a lot about new technologies and business and communication skills that will help us in our future careers. Overall, our experience creating Knackle and working at Zirous was very positive. Thanks to everyone at Zirous for an amazing summer!

Take a look at Knackle!

Authored by Zirous Interns; Davis Batten, Molly Hayes, Chris Kelley, Matt Krueger, and Luke McDermott.