Design and development of a web application for Vihdin-Nummelan Kylähistoria Ry with WordPress as a Headless CMS and React
Pyykölä, Larisa; Petróczki, Edina (2020)
2020
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202004215561
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202004215561
Tiivistelmä
In a constantly changing world, organizations of all types are expected to keep up with the advancements of technology. It is especially true for those websites and applications which are purely informative in nature, as their operation depends on catching the attention of visitors. With this in mind, Vihdin-Nummelan Kylähistoria Ry - a non-profitable organization as of 2019 - contracted Laurea University of Applied Sciences to create a mobile application for their data collection of local history.
This project was first taken on by Markus Salonvaara in 2018, who in his thesis concluded, that a progressive web application developed with Polymer or React would be a feasible solution. After him, the authors of this thesis re-evaluated the situation and detected the following problems: the design of the current website is out-of-date and it should be mod-ernized; its implementation does not include a database, which makes the transfer of data collection more difficult; and the content of the new application should be maintainable without professional IT skills. To overcome these obstacles, the authors of this thesis decided to develop a web application based on a headless CMS (WordPress) and React.
The goals of this thesis are to develop a web application, which is compliant with best practices of web design, user friendly, cost as little as possible, and is maintainable with minimal IT skills. The risks include unforeseen costs, lack of time, insufficient developing skills or resources, and inability to evaluate the success of the project due to lack of previ-ously collected user data.
The development work had been conducted according to the Systems Development Life Cycle framework, which was implemented in an agile way. During this process, the required information was gathered through interviews with the client and benchmarking of websites with a similar purpose. Then, a functional prototype was created with Figma before the hands-on implementation using WordPress and React could start. The web application was finished until a functional pilot state, which could be used while further development is done. Training material in video format was also created for the administrative personnel.
While the developed web application met the set goals, some of the planned features were not added to the application. Those and some other modifications could be done during future development, including the complete transformation of the current solution into a mobile application. However, the application will require continuous maintenance as any other software. This maintenance cannot be provided by students nor by Laurea UAS. Therefore, the client company needs to decide independently how maintenance can be organised for the application.
This project was first taken on by Markus Salonvaara in 2018, who in his thesis concluded, that a progressive web application developed with Polymer or React would be a feasible solution. After him, the authors of this thesis re-evaluated the situation and detected the following problems: the design of the current website is out-of-date and it should be mod-ernized; its implementation does not include a database, which makes the transfer of data collection more difficult; and the content of the new application should be maintainable without professional IT skills. To overcome these obstacles, the authors of this thesis decided to develop a web application based on a headless CMS (WordPress) and React.
The goals of this thesis are to develop a web application, which is compliant with best practices of web design, user friendly, cost as little as possible, and is maintainable with minimal IT skills. The risks include unforeseen costs, lack of time, insufficient developing skills or resources, and inability to evaluate the success of the project due to lack of previ-ously collected user data.
The development work had been conducted according to the Systems Development Life Cycle framework, which was implemented in an agile way. During this process, the required information was gathered through interviews with the client and benchmarking of websites with a similar purpose. Then, a functional prototype was created with Figma before the hands-on implementation using WordPress and React could start. The web application was finished until a functional pilot state, which could be used while further development is done. Training material in video format was also created for the administrative personnel.
While the developed web application met the set goals, some of the planned features were not added to the application. Those and some other modifications could be done during future development, including the complete transformation of the current solution into a mobile application. However, the application will require continuous maintenance as any other software. This maintenance cannot be provided by students nor by Laurea UAS. Therefore, the client company needs to decide independently how maintenance can be organised for the application.