Image Source: Xuan Han
Xuan Han is a fervent advocate for efficiency, channelling his passion into developing tools that optimise productivity. His Swift Student Challenge-winning app, Lightspeed, best shows this dedication by helping users maximise their task efficiency through precise time-tracking.
What’s truly remarkable is that Xuan not only planned, coded, and tested Lightspeed by himself but all of these in just ten days. In addition to his productivity app, Xuan is also focused on his startup, which aims to streamline processes for indie game developers, minimising their workload with innovative solutions.
In this interview, Xuan discusses his journey, the inspiration behind his projects, and his future aspirations in the world of software development.
Image Source: Xuan Han
Congratulations on your Swift Student Challenge win, Xuan Han! Can you tell us more about the concept and development process behind your productivity app, Lightspeed?
Lightspeed provides a clean and easy-to-use interface that helps to make work more efficient by keeping track of breaks and work time, with task reminders. This will allow us to take charge of our work efficiency and make the most out of our time at work. To develop Lightspeed, I split the development process into parts according to the Model-View-View Model (MVVM) structure.
First, I built the Timer Model, which is the core functionality that Lightspeed runs on. The Timer Model stores work, meal and break time information in a CoreData database, handles starting and stopping these events, and generates reports at the end of each work session. Following that, I built the UI according to my designs with fillers for dynamic information. Finally, as the View and ViewModel can often be combined in SwiftUI, I created functions to further abstract the background details needed in the process of managing a work session in the various views, and called these functions from the UI.
Efficiency seems to be a core value for you. What inspired you to focus on building tools that help users maximise their productivity?
Lightspeed solves a problem that I have faced personally when working projects at home. There are many distractions like social media, family members, pets etc. that can take you away from your work. Although having a balanced lifestyle is good, too many breaks can cause us to be less efficient and productive at work, which can lead to being unable to meet set goals or having more stress in the long run. Maximising our productivity helps us to finish our work faster and we can not only enjoy a sense of self-fulfilment but also have more time outside of work for a better quality of life.
Planning, coding, and testing Lightspeed in just ten days is impressive. What strategies did you use to manage your time and resources so effectively?
I had to ensure that tasks were well-defined and time-boxed in order to develop Lightspeed in a relatively short period of time. I split each phase of development into subtasks and gave myself a realistic estimate of time required. For example, designing all pages would take around three hours, building the onboarding pages would take around three hours and the Settings page would take around an hour and a half. That being said, I allocated the most amount of time (three days) for testing and refining, which includes using Lightspeed on my phone daily.
Your startup aims to minimise miscellaneous work for indie game developers. Can you elaborate on the specific problems your app addresses and how it benefits developers?
My startup, Project Quik, aims to revolutionise online entertainment by connecting people of similar interests. We are currently working on a product called Sphere Kit, which simplifies the complexities and costly parts of creating online games. This will allow indie game developers to create online games easily and focus on the refining their gameplay. Features like Authentication, Database, Achievements (consolidation of game achievements in the user’s Sphere Account), Integrations (including finding friends and multiplayer features), Analytics, Transactions (in-game), and Advertising are pre-made and easy to set up with minimal knowledge of the backend on the developers’ side.
You mentioned a focus on learning multiple languages and frameworks. How do you stay motivated and organised while juggling these learning goals with your startup commitments?
I would say working on my startup is my main focus besides school for now; however, this also means that I’m learning multiple languages and frameworks along the way. Since my startup requires game development, front-end development and back-end development skills, I have gotten the hang of those frameworks and languages over time. When I participate in competitions like the Swift Student Challenge or work on personal projects, I have the opportunity to explore frameworks and languages that I do not use as often, giving me valuable learning experiences too. For example, I think Swift is an exciting language that breaks the barriers of older, lower-level languages and makes it easy for developers to create applications.Personally, being excited about the idea of Sphere Kit keeps me motivated, since that is something I am passionate about and will actively pursue.
Looking ahead, what are your long-term goals in software development, and how do you plan to continue innovating and contributing to the tech community?
My long-term goals for software development is to create tech companies with products that positively impact the community, allowing me to put my skills to good use. I’d like to continue working on personal projects to improve smaller-scale parts of our daily lives, and open-source some of my work as a reference for fellow developers. I also run courses on certain programming frameworks, as I believe that software development is a great place for creativity to blossom and gives one the power to make a large impact.
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.