Isaiah Butler

Project Overview

The Survey App for Vox Media was an internal tool designed to gather survey data from users across various devices. The app provided a streamlined experience for survey completion, submission, and data storage, allowing Vox Media to conduct internal research and data collection efficiently.

The app needed to handle large datasets while maintaining a user-friendly interface, ensuring a smooth experience from survey download to data submission. Additionally, it had to be compatible with a wide variety of Android devices.

My Role & Responsibilities

As the sole Android developer for this project, I was responsible for the complete development lifecycle of the app:

  • Android Development: Developed the entire survey-taking app, ensuring compatibility with a diverse range of Android devices, including different screen sizes and OS versions.
  • Survey Data Handling: Implemented the ability to download surveys from an API using Retrofit2 and OkHttp3, ensuring that the app could handle various survey formats and questions.
  • Data Submission: Created functionality to upload survey answers to Amazon S3, ensuring secure and efficient data storage.
  • Error Reporting: Integrated Crashlytics to monitor app performance and report any issues in real time, ensuring a smooth user experience.
  • Project Management & Communication: Coordinated with the Vox Media team using Slack, providing updates on progress and discussing requirements and feedback.

Key Achievements

  • Successfully developed and deployed the app as the sole Android developer, ensuring that all aspects of the project were completed to the client’s specifications.
  • Ensured full compatibility across various Android devices, including handling different screen sizes and OS versions.
  • Integrated Amazon S3 for seamless data storage, allowing survey answers to be securely uploaded and stored.
  • Implemented efficient API calls using Retrofit2 and OkHttp3, ensuring reliable survey download and submission functionality.
  • Used Crashlytics for real-time error monitoring, improving app stability and ensuring a smooth user experience throughout the project.

Tools and Technologies

  • Development: Android Studio, Java, Retrofit2, OkHttp3, Amazon S3, Crashlytics
  • Project Management & Communication: Slack for task coordination, project updates, and team communication.

Challenges & Solutions

  • Challenge: Ensuring compatibility across a wide range of Android devices.
    • Solution: Thoroughly tested the app on various Android devices and screen sizes to ensure full compatibility and a seamless user experience.
  • Challenge: Handling large amounts of survey data while maintaining app performance.
    • Solution: Optimized the app to handle API calls efficiently using Retrofit2 and OkHttp3, ensuring fast and reliable data processing and submission.

Conclusion

The Survey App for Vox Media was a successful project that allowed me to work independently, developing a robust solution for internal survey-taking. The app’s ability to handle real-time data uploads and ensure smooth performance across multiple devices demonstrated my strengths in Android development, API integration, and managing the full development lifecycle. Additionally, working with the Vox Media team using Slack allowed for clear communication and timely project delivery.