GitHub - fourestfire/kit: iOS app built using react-native that helps users keep in touch with their friends

Context

As a solo developer, I launched this React Native iOS app to help people keep in touch with the friends and family they care about the most.
- The app reminds you when you haven't talked to someone in a while, and you can call or text directly from the app.
- I designed and developed KIT from scratch in 2017.
This app was live on the iOS App Store from 2017-2020.
Technlogies: React Native, RealmJS, Moment.js

I loved building something from scratch and working on my product, design, and development knowledge.
I started with user research and basic wireframe flows, then iterated, iterated, and iterated. Here are a few of the questions I faced and answered along the way.
- product: who are my different personas? what does my MVP look like and what's my timeline? what metrics do I track?
- design: what are best practices for designing a mobile-first experience? how do I account for multiple screen sizes? what is my color palette? how do I make an app icon and splash screen?
- development: how do I ensure performance for users with 1000+ contacts? how do I implement push notifications? how the heck do I deploy this to the iOS app store?
Looking back, there were a lot of things I could have done better. Technically, the UI worked, but it wasn't good enough to make it worth the effort over defaults such as simply relying on memory.
- I could've mitigated this by doing more thinking through the user journey ahead of time and doing far more user research and usability testing. Instead, I chose the more expensive path of building a complete workflow before understanding if it was worthwhile or not.