Seamless Communication

The scope required a user-to-user communication implementation. I looked at the different libraries and SDKs, but they did not offer the UI customization needed. Therefore, I developed a custom full-stack chat feature from the ground up. The solution offers custom tags (ex. date) and messages to be displayed.

<>Tech details</>

Utilized WebSocket for the initial connection when attempting to send a message. As a fallback, the messages are saved in a NoSQL database until the next time the receiver goes online or until the expiry date of the message. The messages are also end-to-end encrypted (E2EE). The encryption and the expiry date increase personal data security.

Background Data Delivery

GoGlobers needed a system that ensured data flow and synchronization between users. Enhancing the user-to-user communication implementation, ensured that the same system can be used for delivering all kinds of data in the background even when the application is not used.

User Security

Since active location information is shared between users, already at an early stage of development it was decided that user security is important. To achieve this, a relationship system is developed that permits users to share location and planned trip information only if they already marked each other as 'Friends'.

Determining Near Friends

As one of the first elements on the home screen, the friends near the current user are displayed. The priority order of these users is determined by several factors: the current location of each user, the planned trips of each user, how long the users were close to or far from each other, and others.

<>Tech details</>

Two connected tier lists were implemented for near-user calculation. One tier system is for the actual distance, which is based both on measured distance and on a pre-determined region list of countries. The other tier system considers how much time a user has spent within a given distance from the other user.

Private Memories

Over time and travel, users may not remember all the other users they added as friends. That is why a photo memory system was implemented, which allows them to create private photo memories, marked with date and location, helping them to remember each other in the future.