Passerby is a two sided marketplace for people to arrange pick-up and delivery of items they have purchased or for them to pick-up and deliver an item/s for someone else.
For example, if someone travels between the CBD and Pakenham each day for work they could potentially pick up an item for someone who may live in Pakenham but is unable to travel into the CBD.
People often want to buy items that require travelling/pick-up. This can be difficult if the buyer does not have a car and/or time to go get the item.
Some examples include items on Gumtree - it might be a great deal but it could be anywhere!
Or perhaps purchasing an item from a Ikea or another large department store. They often charge expensive delivery fees.
This results in the person either having to pay expensive delivery fees or buy the item for a higher price somewhere else.
I have created a platform where users can post the items they need picked up and other users can offer to pick it up and deliver it for the listed payment.
This arrangement benefits both parties as the person receiving the item does not have to travel to pick-up or pay expensive postage.
The person delivering the item will earn a little extra money but not have to go out of their way.
It will be up to the user to post how much they are willing to pay for the pick-up and delivery of their item as it will vary based on distance and size of the item.
I will take a percentage from each transaction that happens on the site.
Clone or download the repo
git clone [email protected]:jessodri/passerby.git
Install gems
bundle install
Create .env file and add environment variables
Create Database
rails db:create
Migrate tables
rails db:migrate
Start server
rails server
Open in your browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000.
I chose the name Passerby as it suits the idea of people picking up items as they are 'passing by'. I also wanted a name that was short and uncomplicated.
I used Trello to write my user stories, list possible features and keep track of what I needed to complete as I built my app.
- As a user I want to have my item delivered so that I do not have to drive somewhere to get it
- As a user I want to have my item delivered so that I have time for other things
- As a user I want to have items delivered for a low cost so that I can save money
- As a user I want to be able to find someone to pick-up my item quickly and easily so that I don't have to wait a long time
- As a user I want to have the freedom to buy items in any location so that I have more options available
- As a user I want to be able to pay online so that we are not dealing with cash payments
- As a user I want to be able to view profiles of people who do pick-ups/drop-off in my area so that I can ask them directly to pick something up
- As a user I want to be able to message the pick-up person directly so that we can make arrangements
- As a user I want to be able to see what items need to be picked up along the route I travel so that I can pick jobs close to me
- As a user I want to find jobs so that I can earn extra money
- As a user I want to know the pick-up and drop-off location so that I can plan my journey
- As a user I want to be able to save jobs to a list so that I can keep track of them
- As a user I want to be paid securely and quickly so that I don't have to harass the requester for payment
- As a user I want to be able to list where I tend to travel so that people can find me and request that I pick an item for them
- As a user I want to have a profile page so that people can find out where I do pick-ups
I created a user journey flowchart to help visualize the site layout from the perspective of the user. I helped me to plan an efficient layout for my site.
My database had 6 tables in it, which was a managable number. Any more and I think I would have struggled to keep things organized.
I wanted to keep my design simple and clean. I chose 4 main colors:
I chose two fonts; Crimson Text for headings and Open Sans for paragraphs. I did not spend a lot of time browsing/testing fonts, I picked the first 2 that I liked and went with them!
For my logo I wanted to incorporate the 'P' and 'B' from Passerby and came up with the below logo:
I started off with a very basic greyscale design to decide on my layout:
I experimented with a couple of colors but ultimately I stayed with the blue. I was not happy with my first attempts at designing the landing page:
I ended up going with the below design as it seemed much cleaner and user friendly:
My desktop version is very similar to my mobile design and it scales quite well without me having to do too much extra CSS.
I used a number of gems during my project including:
- mailgun-ruby - for sending emails
- stripe - for transactions
- devise - for authentication
- pundit - for authorization
- country_select - provides country codes
- geocoder - provide latitude and longitude for addresses
- aws-sdk-s3 - for AWS S3 storage
- pry-rails - debugging help
- dotenv - environment variables
For shrine (image uploading):
- image_processing - for shrine (image uploading)
- fastimage
- mini_magick
- shrine
I user git for versions control which I found very helpful. There was at least one time where I needed to rollback to a previous commit and I was so happy that I had been commiting regularly because I lost very little work!
I tried to make new branches for every major feature although I did forget a few times.
Although I did not have any code reviews done through Git/Github, I was assisted by several of my classmates and often assisted them in return. Some of the people who helped me with reviewing parts of my code included Cameo, Drew, Steve and Luke. I received assistence from my teachers as well.
My app included features such as:
- Image uploading for user profiles and pickup requests (Shrine)
- Static google map displaying the pickup locations for items and also the users location (Geocoder)
- Users are sent an email when they accept a pickup request (Mailgun)
- Users can see a list of pickup requests they have posted on their profile. They also see a stripe payment button so they can send the payment for that request (Stripe)
- Users can only edit their own profiles and pickup requests
- Users can reset requests and if they decide not to use the person who accepted it
I kept my design as simple as possible and used flexbox for most of my styling. Because of that it is pretty responsive, it might need to be tweaked in a few areas but I was happy with the result.
I had several problems while coding.
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I did not deploy to Heroku soon enough and when I tried I kept getting an error which turned out to be caused by the shrine uploader and compiled assets files.
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I also struggled to implement a messaging system in my app, I knew how to set up a basic system but my app required it to be tied to a specific pickup request. This was very difficult for me to get working properly and I needed quite a bit of help with that.
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I tried to implement a function that Maxi suggested to automatically redirect users to create their profile after they sign-up. Unfortunately it caused some errors and I made it even worse trying to make it work. I ended up rolling back to a previous commit.
There are so many things that I could do to improve my application that I just did not have time for or do not yet have the skills.
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The conversation/messaging system needs to be improved, it currently doesn't like it if the same 2 users try to converse on a different pickup request.
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Better CSS styling, its pretty basic right now.
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Implement a proper stripe transaction system where one user can transfer money to another.
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Have the profile page show requests that the user has offered to pickup.
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Allow users to search requests by location radius so they can find requests nearby.
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Allow users to post how urgently they need the pickup completed.
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Place more emphasis on the fact that we encourage people to plan pickups for journeys they make on a regular basis anyway eg. driving to the city for work each day.
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ALWAYS git commit regularly
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Deploy your site as early as possible so you can see where errors are occuring
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Don't spend too long trying to solve one problem, ASK for help
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Think about the user's needs