SkillsGuild

Posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2021

Client	Randy Desormeaux, Simeon Seguin, Mike Grainger
Professor(s)	SuCheng Lee, Adesh Shah
Program	Mobile Application Design and Development
Students	Ben Bradley Anoopinder Kaur Ravi Rachamalla Anatolie Chetreanu Haorong Li Komal Devi

Project Description:

SkillsGuild is an android application built on the idea of keeping cultural traditions and skills alive. We want to encourage people with unique skills from all cultures to join and share their knowledge. It is a home for all non-commoditized skills to be shared and celebrated, giving masters of those skills the opportunity to post and manage their class.

The idea of SkillsGuild came from our clients Randy Desormeaux, Simeon Seguin, and Mike Grainger, who were inspired by an interest in the little cultural traditions and skills. “It seems to me that the things that are promoted and shared are things that can turn a profit on their own. That just seems like a shame. Deep historical roots shrivel up and are lost because there is no money in them? I’m a software developer by trade and so I had the idea that maybe one day I could build a platform that allows these traditions to be shared directly and inexpensively by the people who lived them.” – Randy

We started the process by researching the market, users and technology. We went through 3 iterations of design, prototype and testing to create a seamless UI for an optimal user experience. Meanwhile, we also developed a fully functioning API to support the front end of the solution.

With the API ready to support the front end tasks, we built and connected it with Firebase backend technology .

SkillsGuild app users can:

As a Teacher:
Register classes with customizable details
Have full control of registrant status, allowing or denying enrolment
Be notified of new class registrants
Use discussion boards to communicate with all registrants of a class

As a Student:
Explore classes by location, keyword, or category
Give classes a review
Join classes and be placed on a waiting list
Post messages on Class Providers discussion board
Bookmark classes for later access

SkillsGuild differentiates itself from similar platforms by harbouring a variety of unique skills and cultures that are otherwise difficult to find training for. We allow class providers to have control of communications, registrants, and class details. We allow users to explore and sign up for classes, and offer a tool to communicate with providers of the classes they have registered for. We do this all in one spot, the SkillsGuild application currently designed for android.