Stills

Stills is a daily photo app that inspires mindfulness with creative prompts, helping users disconnect and build a personal gallery without social pressure.

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Inspiration

The inspiration for Stills came from a desire to create a simple, mindful experience that encourages users to slow down and appreciate their surroundings. In a world driven by social media, where people are often pressured to showcase perfect moments, we wanted to shift the focus inward. Stills promotes creativity and self-expression through photography by providing users with a daily prompt to capture personal, meaningful moments without the need for external validation.

What it Does

Stills delivers one photography prompt to users each day, such as "a pop of red" or "shadows." Users then take a picture inspired by that prompt, creating a personal gallery of their photos over time. The app is designed to be simple, helping users focus on creativity and mindfulness rather than social comparison. There's no social sharing component—just personal growth through capturing authentic moments.

How We Built It

We built Stills using Flutter for cross-platform support on both iOS and Android. Key elements include:

  • Flutter Platform Widgets to ensure native UI elements across platforms.
  • Hive for encrypted local storage, allowing users to securely save their photos and data without relying on the cloud.
  • Flutter Secure Storage to securely generate and store encryption keys, ensuring sensitive user data remains protected.
  • Camera Integration using Flutter’s camera package for capturing images directly within the app.
  • A minimalist UI, designed to be calming and distraction-free, focusing users on the prompt and the photo-taking experience.

Challenges We Ran Into

One of the main challenges was ensuring smooth camera integration across different devices, particularly handling permissions and performance. Another challenge was implementing encrypted local storage in a way that protected users' photos while maintaining ease of access. Additionally, designing prompts that are consistently engaging yet varied was a creative challenge.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

We're proud of creating a privacy-focused app that encourages users to engage in mindful photography. By successfully implementing encrypted local storage and designing a simple, clean user interface, we were able to achieve our vision of a distraction-free experience. We’re also proud of the unique prompts, which inspires creativity and personal reflection through daily use.

What We Learned

Throughout the development process, we learned how important it is to balance simplicity and functionality. We deepened our understanding of Flutter’s cross-platform capabilities, how to handle sensitive user data with encryption, and how to design prompts that engage users over time. We also learned that user privacy and user experience can go hand in hand, without sacrificing one for the other.

What's Next for Stills

Next, we plan to expand Stills by incorporating features like:

  • Prompt generation/customization so we can autogenerate prompts and users can create their own prompts for future use.
  • Reminder Notifications to notify users when it’s time to take their daily photo.
  • Enhanced gallery view that allows users to view, edit, and organize their photo collections.
  • Exploring potential integration with wellness tracking to align mindful photography with overall mental health goals.

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