Case Study
1. Introduction and Motivation
Riffle originated from the idea of transforming polls from a static data collection tool into an interactive experience. In a time of decreasing attention spans, Riffle provides an incentive for active participation through gamification elements like points and badges. The project demonstrates the implementation of a scalable SaaS architecture using modern frontend technologies and a cloud backend.
2. Problem Statement and Goals
Problem: Classic polling tools are often dry, offer little incentive to participate, and make organization within teams or specific interest groups difficult.
Goals:
- High Engagement: Increase response rates through gamification (leaderboards, rewards).
- Structured Organization: Introduction of workspaces and groups for companies and communities.
- Real-time Feedback: Immediate visualization of results without manual refresh.
- Clean Architecture: Building a maintainable codebase through clear separation of data persistence (Repositories), state (Stores), and presentation (Components).
3. System Architecture and Design
Architecture Overview: The application follows a strict Repository Pattern. This decouples the business logic from the concrete implementation of the data source (Firebase).
Architecture Components:
- Frontend: React with TypeScript for maximum type safety.
- Backend-as-a-Service: Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Hosting) for fast iteration cycles and real-time capabilities.
- State Management: Zustand with multiple specialized stores (
authStore,pollStore,workspaceStore) to minimize side effects and optimize performance. - Validation: Zod ensures all data entering or leaving the repository conforms to the expected schema.
Architecture Diagram: ::BaseMermaid
graph TD
subgraph "Frontend (React)"
UI[Components / UI] -- Hooks --> Stores[Zustand Stores]
Stores -- Calls --> Repos[Repositories]
Repos -- Schema Validation --> Zod[Zod Schemas]
end
subgraph "Backend (Cloud)"
Repos -- SDK --> FB[Firebase / Firestore]
end
::
4. Implementation Highlights
Gamification Engine: The leaderboard calculates ranks based on user activities (poll participation, content creation). A badge system rewards specific milestones. The logic is designed to be processed efficiently by Cloud Functions or directly in the client (for smaller groups).
Flexible Workspace Management:
Users can create their own workspaces and invite members via email. An integrated invitation system with status tracking (pending, accepted) ensures clean user management within the hierarchical structures of workspaces and groups.
5. Results and Outlook
Current Status: The proof-of-concept is fully functional and offers all core features from authentication to complex analytics dashboards. The chosen architecture allows for easy extensibility with new data sources or additional gamification mechanics.
Next Steps:
- Cloud Functions: Offloading compute-intensive gamification logic to the server.
- Template System: Predefined poll templates for various use cases.
- Export Function: PDF and CSV export for detailed reports.
6. Personal Growth and Lessons Learned
Clean Architecture in the Frontend: The consistent application of the Repository Pattern demonstrated the value of abstraction. Switching from mock data to real Firebase was accomplished within a few hours thanks to the clear interfaces.
Enterprise Frontend Patterns: Working with Zod and complex stores provided deep insights into enterprise-grade frontend development. The challenge of mapping complex application logic in a type-safe and performant manner was one of the most instructive experiences of this project.