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Ask HN: What's a software project that made people's lives better?

by agomez314 on 10/8/24, 7:21 PM with 21 comments

• by brailsafe on 10/9/24, 1:20 AM

  I helped a friend at the gym fix their hotkeys in Windows when some out of date writing software started screwing with it. Outside of that, I've learned that well-tested (user tested) UI of any kind is some of the most impactful work a software dev/designer could be doing on a regular basis, regardless of what backend devs or w/e will tell you. Making a scrollable area more clearly look like a scrollable area, or making a password entry process less arduous, is incredibly important work, if not only because it saves some other people from being confused and wasting energy on a problem they shouldn't have; this is particularly true of any public service interface stuff.

• by qup on 10/8/24, 10:07 PM

  I did a re-write of a website for a highly-rated charity organization. They solicit monies to fund orphanages, build homes, and sponsor individual children in one specific country.

  They were changing processors and backend CRMs and it was a big project that I handled as the only dev in a small shop.

  The transition went well and I didn't disrupt the millions in donations the site takes in each year.

  My work was small compared to that of the volunteers in the organization, though. It's cool to see what you can do with code--really some powerful leverage we wield.

• by LarryMade2 on 10/8/24, 10:39 PM

  This was a software project for me, wanted something that lets me know what things to do in the area, where are shops, what are their hours, how to contact them, etc. Not only for businesses but for public spaces (say you wanted to rent the local park for an event-contact info is there), also event information, local notices, etc.) I've used it several times checking if some store in the town I'm headed is open (go to the local info page, then click on the facebook link and see if it is actually open) as well as a place to point others local resources (like where can we hold a wedding near town X).

  https://doplaces.com After ten years I've learned it's to get people to submit information (even if listings are free) also has been a challenge for this semi-introverted programmer to market it.

  Another project (for my employer) we have had a printed community resource directory for decades this helps people find local government/aid resources for families and has got recognition for its handyness in emergencies. I have created a web version - the notable part on this one is putting in a facility so those on mobile can (via cookies) select favorites and write notes associated on those for later reference. https://rr.trcac.org/resdir.htm I guess the other challenge in this area is we are rural and a good portion of the population is not all that well connected or tech savvy. The paper one still currently wins out over the on-line version.

• by pedalpete on 10/8/24, 10:18 PM

  I've had 2 (so far)

  I was part of a team which built a very early telehealth platform. A bunch of the work was open-sourced as rtc.io (though I didn't have much to do with that). The resulting company and tech is used by a few million people a month (I think).

  I built an ML system used at a large drop-ship retailer which ingested huge excel spreadsheets of products from suppliers and added them to the retailers database in a consistent manner. This made a painstaking and horrible job for 12 people into a job that was done by 2 people 2 hours per week. Yes, we replaced people in their jobs, and I hope they all went on to get better jobs, because everyone hated that job, and most people only lasted a few months.

  I also was founder of Ayvri (3d mapping sports tech for paragliders) - I don't put this in the same category as the others, though it was the most lucrative for me, because though paragliders loved it, as did a few ultramarathoners, etc. I don't think it really had the level of impact.

  For the last 4 years the team I worked with in telehealth have returned to our health roots and are working on improving sleep with affectablesleep.com

• by jerezzprime on 10/9/24, 12:13 AM

  I recently left my job at ClassDojo. It is a place that truly wants to help teachers do well and improve the education experience for kids (and their parents/guardians). We love to hear from the teachers about how much ClassDojo makes a difference for them.

  The company is exploring a ton of cool stuff to help kids beyond their classroom, and really wants to make things better.

• by AndrewKemendo on 10/9/24, 12:12 AM

  FindCovidTesting.com

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22650725

  We ended up placing I think 40000 tests. Informed Sen Warren’s report and was eventually absorbed into the GISCorps program.

• by Clubber on 10/8/24, 10:44 PM

  I rewrote a scheduling system used in hospitals. This was when hospitals switched to centralized scheduling. It was a rule based AI engine that made sure patients would get the earliest possible appointment given x resources of y types required. There were 30 or so types of rules (it's been a few years now) and a great puzzle.

• by paulcole on 10/9/24, 1:50 AM

  I made a web app that lets people check their bikes in and out of a bike valet service at a big hospital near me. I set up a usage dashboard and it’s neat to see that 300-400 people use it everyday to make their commutes a little more hassle free.

• by reducesuffering on 10/8/24, 9:47 PM

  I've gotten early feedback that my project https://exoroad.com is helping people find US places that are a better match for them to move to.

• by facorreia on 10/9/24, 2:19 AM

  I worked on a data science platform that is being used to accelerate research for diagnosing cancer at early stages and for researching treatments for cancer and other diseases.

• by solardev on 10/9/24, 3:58 PM

  One project I really enjoyed making was an open-source indoor web map for a museum: https://map.fieldmuseum.org/

  (Speaking for myself only. I don't work there anymore.)

  I don't know if the map's made people's lives any better, or just a little more annoying, maybe =/ Personally, I would've preferred a regular paper map on the back of a brochure, which can be both much bigger than a phone screen and not require any learned UI interactions. Unfortunately, the powers-that-be stopped using paper maps during COVID (a decision I tried to fight, unsuccessfully). So our visitors could either use this map on their phones or not have one at all. In that sense, I guess it was better than nothing...?

  At the time we built this (a few years ago), indoor mapping (as opposed to the typical outdoor street mapping of Google/Apple/OSM/etc.) was a pretty niche area, and the commercial solutions we saw were all some combination of 1) expensive, 2) slow, 3) clunky, 4) too proprietary, or 5) not mobile-friendly.

  So we set out to make our own... with a budget of $0 and a dev team of 1 inexperienced web dev (me). It was the first time I ever worked on a web map, and trying to hack indoor areas and multiple floors onto it was... a challenge! It's got a lot of problems (it's laggy on some phones, editing the geometry is a huge PITA, UI isn't great and has bugs, branding/marketing imposed many restrictions, etc.). Honestly, it's pretty jank code that I wish I could rewrite from scratch. We had a whole roadmap of planned improvements and cleanups, but our team was forced to moved on right after initial release.

  But on the plus side:

  1) It's free and open-source: https://github.com/arcataroger/openlayers_indoor_map (but it's abandoned and I wouldn't recommend using it unless you really have no other options; check https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Indoor_Mapping first for alternatives)

  2) It uses vanilla JS/HTML/CSS. This is a decision I question in hindsight, as it made state and UI management unnecessarily difficult. But it seemed right at the time, given the need to minimize long-term maintenance (i.e. JS framework churn) because of the limited dev resources available in the museum and nonprofit worlds.

  3) It's better than nothing :)

  I wish I had the time and resources to rewrite this whole thing from scratch, having learned from this experience. I'd fix a ton of bugs, change up the UI, clarify the symbology, and maybe try to push some of the indoor-specific features as proper upstream PRs to OpenLayers & QGIS rather than just hacking them into this app as one-offs.

  I think having a "proper" open-source frontend indoor mapping solution would be a great boon to many museums, art galleries, airports, malls, colleges, etc. Google Maps actually does a pretty good job at this for certain places like airports (e.g. SFO: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.6164644,-122.3859568,17.78z), but their process for that is totally opaque, and it's never clear to me how an institution can ask for their space to be mapped like that (or submit their own?). Even when I worked at the museum, we could never figure out how to actually get their map of us corrected. It's still missing all the floors and many exhibitions are in the wrong places: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8661273,-87.6169018,20.06z

  Maybe I'll pick this up again someday and try to work on it as a side project...

• by JSDevOps on 10/8/24, 7:29 PM

  My trading algorithms have been profitable, and I enjoy the freedom that money brings. I appreciate the things it allows me to buy and the experiences it unlocks. More importantly, it positively impacts the people around me