sloh03/friend-finder

A full-stack application for finding the most compatible friend through a 10 question survey.

FriendFinder

LIVE DEMO

This is a compatibility-based "FriendFinder" application built with Node.js and uses Express to handle routing. This full-stack site will take in results from users' surveys, then compare their answers with those from other users.

Function

The survey includes 10 questions. Each answer is based on a scale of 1 to 5 depending on how much the user agrees or disagrees with a question.

The app will then display the name and picture of the user with the best overall match.

Design

The file directories are as follows:

FriendFinder
- app
    - data
        - friends.js
- public
    - home.html
    - survey.html
- routing
    - apiRoutes.js
    - htmlRoutes.js
- node_modules
- package.json
- server.js

The server.js file requires the basic npm packages express, body-parser and path.

The htmlRoutes.js file includes two routes:

• A GET Route to /survey which displays the survey page
• A default, catch-all route that leads to home.html which displays the home page

The apiRoutes.js file contains two routes:

• A GET route with the url /api/friends, which displays a JSON of all possible friends
• A POST routes /api/friends, which handles incoming survey results as well as compatibility logic

The application's data inside of app/data/friends.js is saved as an array of objects and is formatted as follows:

{
    "name":"Pam Beesly",
    "photo":"https://theofficeanalytics.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/pam-halpert-1.jpg?w=1200",
    "scores":[
        "4",
        "5",
        "5",
        "3",
        "1",
        "2",
        "5",
        "5",
        "2",
        "5"
    ]
},

To determine the user's most compatible friend, their results are first converted into a simple array of numbers (ex: [5, 1, 4, 4, 5, 1, 2, 5, 4, 1]).

Then the current user's scores are compared against those from other users, question by question. The differences are added to calculate the totalDifference.

The closest match will be the user with the least amount of difference.

Once the current user's most compatible friend is determined, the result is displayed as a modal pop-up. The modal displays both the name and picture of the closest match.

The final app is deployed to Heroku.

Languages and Libraries Used

• Node.js

Materials Sources

• Express npm package
• Body-parser npm package
• Path npm package
• Heroku