1916 Repository is an app for iPad that I developed with Rebecca Love for our MSc in Creative Digital Media. It allows users to upload, share & archive their family’s stories of 1916. It will act as a digital catalogue of those involved, preserving their experiences and memorabilia. It is envisaged as a user generated web, connecting personal stories of the event from different families, bringing anecdotes and unique perspectives together. Users can follow and create tags enabling them to gather information that is of most interest to them. In addition to this, 1916 relatives will be connected so that they can share information, advice and resources. Families can share memorabilia with the public while being able to keep the original artefacts themselves, they can now upload their content from the comfort of their own home. Our app will compile everyone’s stories into a digital space where they will be both accessible and preserved for future generations.

Discover Screen: Having logged in the user is brought to the Discover Screen. Here the user is presented with a feed of all the stories that have been uploaded. The user can filter by tags which are categorised by People, Places, Events, Groups and Artefacts. The feed is automatically updated with each selection and tags can be removed from the search query by tapping on the tag displayed. Each tag also has an information icon which when tapped provides general information about the selected tag. 

Card Screen: This is the view that the user is presented with when they select a card from any of the card feeds. It consists of the story title, image, story and the tags associated with it. The user can also swipe between the cards in a given feed, or use the tags to do another search. 

Upload Screen: The upload process is one of the most important aspects of the app. Users consistently emphasised simplicity and clarity when asked how they would like the process to work during testing. For this reason we opted for a three stage process that separates the upload elements into different tabs that allow th user to upload the content they want easily. Tags are also to the for as they are the means by which users can search for the content they want. 

Home Screen: This screen contains three tabs that present the user with content that is personal to them - Their own posts, the posts that they have 'collected' and the tags that they are 'following'. This also where the user can edit their profile. 

About Screen: This screen provides general information about the app including a video tutorial that explains how the app works. 

We developed this app because of all the relatives we have spoken to, or who provided feedback and the hundreds who we were unable to speak to in time. We developed this app for the thousands of relatives who attend meetings for the garrisons that fought during the Rising, or who have joined groups on social media to share and exchange stories. We developed it because now is a good time to look back at how far Ireland has come in one hundred years and reflect on the contribution of some of her citizens to a hugely significant time in our history.  

Regardless of politics or personal views our conversations with 1916 relatives have demonstrated the value for all of us in learning more about 1916 and the people who played a part. We hope that with this project we can provide an outlet for people to come together and share their individual stories, to connect them and to learn, whether the user has direct connections or not.

My role in the project primarily focused on the back end development. I implemented functionality and worked on developing the app's data structure while Rebecca was responsible for front end development and UI. I worked with PHP, MySQLi and AJAX to create responsive features that could access our database and return relevant data to the user. The database was quite complex but the development process is described in more detail on our blog - https://the1916repository.wordpress.com/