Hey all happy weekend!
Just a brief update on what we have so far (going to use XF 2.2's new editor to show
). Just going through the views for now. A full feature rundown is coming. We're in the last few weeks, waiting on iOS approval for our first few communities at the moment.
Splash/Onboarding
Everything you see is customizeable such as any imagery and branding, even the phrases, from the phrase manager in XF and the options panel.
Updates
This feature came about from talking with some friends in the space (thanks
@leebo and others). What a lot of people want is just a quick way to share a photo or video natively. Be that through the native share interface or with a UI. So that is what we have here.
As previously discussed, we are treading lightly on the feature depth, sending users to webview when viewing a thread or profile or other deeper pages. So nothing gets missed this way and users are not left confused or lacking features. All features are opt-in, this one is no different.
The data structure is the Profile Messages, perhaps an underappreciated feature in XF, especially now that in 2.2 we have the ability to add attachments. We had an add-on that did exactly this behind the scenes so another feature we can rely on XF for! Needless to say Ive been very happy overall with XF 2.2's feature set when it comes to user engagement. A lot more to do gives us a lot more options and freedom.
Note: Users can quickly and easily upload and message sure but share, up/downvote, comment, and react all from the first page of the app. Really gives a small social vibe while keeping the content side of threads still right there at the top. You as an admin can choose if users can even make this their default home tab or if you'd rather it be New Threads/Posts, Watched, Trending, or Forum list (among others).
Node List/Forum View
Not much to discuss here other than we're going for a very familiar yet native experience. If your forum list or even node list is doing very custom things, simply show web view when people come here. But if you have a simpler structure, having it native so people can swipe to watch or swipe to create a thread is nice and convenient for the user.
Here is dark mode.
And also here is New Posts view, but it will look very similar for Forum view as well.
Thread Preview
Another optional feature is thread preview. Since we expect, and recommend, keeping thread view web (though we are dabbling in ideas of doing native, it will not be for some time), we wanted to offer an interim options for those that found the experience of going to and fro inconvenient. This is likely only best for sites that do not run ads, something to test for sure, since this stays on the app by design. So again it is something you may not want.
BUT if you do want it, the nice part is that users can get context of the first post and the top/most popular/most upvoted responses (limited to say 3-5 as an example). So if they preview the thread, determine its not for them, no time lost opening web view. And if they do want to engage and reply as that little extra gave context, they can. OR perhaps they just want to leave a quick reaction, share, or upvote instead of replying. You won't need to go to webview for that either.
Definitely something a bit experimental and something to A/B test.
Prizes
This idea is something we've built custom for dozens of communities over the years. This one is rather simple in scope right now but the idea is that you can automatically send a push notification every few (perhaps 2-4) weeks to incentivize users to re-engage with the platform and in exchange they have a random chance of earning a prize.
Prizes, currently, are going to be redeemable as codes. Something you can buy in bulk, add into the inventory (and refill when it gets low) so that people can earn cash gift cards like $5 Amazon or Starbucks. Don't want to offer money? No problem, we can give out XP, gifted subs perhaps, and other incentives.
Not a feature for every community either, but something that could be nice.
Another utility here is consecutive logins (which we are supporting). If you login say 3 days in a row you can earn an extra prize. A bit gimmicky sure but I think some communities might like the little fun gesture. Can be disabled of course.
What's next?
So like I mentioned, main task right now is getting Apple to approve the app as is. We're working through some of their items, such as native options for reporting abuse, etc (they are rather thorough aren't they
). So once that is done, some features on the horizon:
- Native ads
- Ultra fast UI.X theme for web (for webview)
- Native analytics and KPI goal tracking
- A/B Testing
- Native subscriptions! (Apple/Google require their 30% cuts ofc so we're working on getting this integrated with XF's available tools)
- A survey option so we can start getting feedback from users
- App store links to share here so you can test it on a demo!
- And probably more that I'm missing, but I'm hot and its the weekend. Have a good one all!
Thanks for reading and will post more soon!
If there’s anything Jon or I can do to help out just let us know! We’re eagerly awaiting!