costa rica
Costa Eu-rica!
Uploaded on 2nd March 2025
It's no secret that Costa Rica has some of the most beautiful and diverse flora and fauna in the world, so for this project, I was keen to celebrate that.
By creating a fun and interactive quiz, I knew that I could teach the user several interesting, and sometimes unusual, facts about the country's native animals. I definitely had fun incorporating these cheeky creatures into the designs, and even more fun tracking them down in real life:
A cheeky chappy capuchin monkey frolics in the trees
A tiny, poisonous red frog hiding away
A slow sloth spotted high up in the branches
2 toucans singing away to each other with their bright yellow beaks
A pesky racoon sniffs out food
Costa Rica is a very varied country, and I was lucky enough to spend time in a few different locations.
When I first crossed the border, I ended up hitchhiking part of the way to my destination. However, I wasn't the only one standing at the side of the road, because suddenly green iguanas were dropping down from the trees right by me - it was surreal! In fact, the 'thud' animations of the iguanas and other animals in this quiz app were inspired by these pesky visitors falling down around me!
My first stop was Monteverde to enjoy the cloud forests and some cooler weather, where I finalised a lot of the logic for this quiz. I then hit the Caribbean coast to do some real animal spotting, namely in Cahuita National Park. There I saw numerous monkeys, sloths, hummingbirds, toucans, racoons, scarlet macaws and more, and learned some fun facts too.
My final destination was San José and surrounding areas. Here I was hosted by a friend and his incredibly welcoming and generous family. They told me some wonderful stories about Costa Rica and showed me around the gorgeous mountains and coffee plantations - very lucky and grateful!
Sun-lounging with the most gorgeous view over the Caribbean sea
My bus from Monteverde to San José was a dashing, bow-tied fella and was a comfy spot to code
A rainy day called for terrace debugging
Evening hostel hammock chills
Costa Eu-rica is a NextJS app that tracks a user's progress as they proceed through the quiz, highlighting correct and incorrect answers. At the end of the 10 questions, their result is shown alongside an animal and description that relates to the knowledge level. From here, a user can share their result to friends, or retake the quiz.
I knew I could bash out the basic logic for this project in a few hours, and could then focus the rest of my time on adding more functionality and building upon the designs. I particularly enjoyed bringing the animals to life through animations, especially the swinging sloth!
Of course, ensuring the quiz worked across all screen sizes was a challenge, and the share functionality was also a real pain, despite all my learnings from the Guatemala project - it just never quite seems to play nice.
However, I think I've delivered a visually pleasing and exciting app, with a cheeky result at the end that hopefully compels the user to share to their friends and family.
Costa Eu-rica quiz start screen
Question 1 with an option selected
The result screen - try do better than me!
Please do test your knowledge in this quiz, and let me know your thoughts - I'd love to hear them!
As always, drop me a message if you spot any bugs, have any improvement ideas, or have any suggestions for future country projects!