Emma Ann Hynes
Orbit is a responsive web-based application exploring the homogenisation of contemporary web design and the decline of personal expression online. Inspired by the early internet, this project allows users to create and share personalised digital canvases using draggable, resizable, and customisable components for text, images, GIFs, and more. Acting like a digital scrapbook, Orbit aims to demonstrate that online spaces can support accessibility, usability, autonomy, and creative self-expression in our current era of the internet.
Feel free to check it out here! https://final-project-ekiizu.onrender.com
Orbit was created in response to the increasing sameness of contemporary web design. Many modern websites and platforms use similar layouts, visual styles, and interaction patterns, which can improve familiarity but often reduces individuality and creative expression online. I wanted to question whether this standardisation is unavoidable, or whether digital spaces can still feel personal, experimental, and user-owned.
The project was also motivated by my personal interest in the early internet, where websites often felt more expressive and unique even with the limitations that existed at the time. Orbit aims to bring some of that creative freedom into a modern, accessible web application. Rather than focusing on endless scrolling, recommendations or algorithmims, Orbit encourages users to slow down, create, customise, and build a space that reflects their identity!
I created Orbit not only to explore how usability, accessibility, and a users digital expression can co-exist, but also as an appreciation for the early internet that many of us grew up with.
Orbit is a responsive full-stack web application that allows users to create and share their own personalised digital canvas. Users can add, arrange, resize, and customise content such as cards, images, GIFs, and stickers, creating a space that feels similar to a digital scrapbook. A guestbook feature was also included, inspired by early internet websites, allowing visitors to leave messages on a user’s published canvas.
Through this project, I explored how expressive web design can exist alongside usability and accessibility. Orbit demonstrates that modern websites can still feel personal, visually distinctive, and user-controlled, while also using clear feedback, readable layouts, and modern accessibility practices.
From a technical perspective, Orbit was developed using React, TypeScript, CSS, SQL, and Supabase. Key features include user authentication, persistent canvas storage, image uploading, customisable components, theme customisation, and a community marketplace.
Overall, Orbit has helped me better understand the full development cycle and the challenges involved in building a functional application from start to finish. It has also shown me that individuality, accessibility, and usability can coexist when considered carefully from the beginning.
While it is far from done, I am very happy with how Orbit has turned out so far, and I am very excited to continue developing it!
