Need Experienced Bubbler's Opinion On App Design

[cryptoinwestorka]

Hello Bubblers,

I am planning to ask my dance community to start testing MVP that I have built. Before I do that I wanted to ask experienced bubblers about the best way to approach such beta testing phase.
a) How should I prepare the process for gathering bug reports (should I just use google forms). For displaying current bugs and requested features I will be using Trello. Do you have a better ideas?
b) What would be the easiest way to create a repeating events functionality. So far the way I build it is by using parent Event type and then children Repeating Event type which holds a reference to the parent. I had to use several plugins for this system to work and it is something that bothers me. I could not find any other, easier way. You can have a look at it in the workflows in my dashboard . See screenshots. Thease are all workflows in red, orange and brown color in the dashboard.

c) Do you see issues down the road already looking at the way I:

• filter for events (I am using state variables instead of url route params)
• show event details (I use pop-up instead of creating a unique page for each event)
• work with database (I do not have any back-end dashboard to display statistics about users, their activities etc). Do we maybe have some templates I could look at. And is it true that I should not work directly with the db entries?

The app is supposed to be a dance events (classes, parties, dance festivals) catalogue where a) organisers can promote their events and b) users can easily find events in their cities (for now testing only few German cities). The catalogue is focused on latin dance community so it is not supposed to show any dance events. These events are focused on salsa, bachata, zouk, kizomba dance communities.

MVP actors:
i) Organiser:

1. Organiser can add their event
2. Organiser can add their event and repeat the event on daily, weekly, monthly basis
3. Organiser has to be a paid user to add events (for now when you register you are automatically subscribed to a paid plan)

ii) User

1. User can filter events in the catalogue by city, date, dance style (bachata, salsa), dance type (for now class or party. In the future festivals, workshops, weekend meetups which smaller festivals)
2. User can view event details without being registered or paying

I welcome all improvement ideas from a), b) and c) as well as any cool Idas you see where it could be an easy low hanging fruit but could add a lot of value to the MVP or later v2 or v3.

I understand that what I am asking for is a lot and we have only so much free time to help others, so any advice is really appreciated.

[bubble.helpers]

Kindly check inbox @cryptoinwestorka Thanks.

[accts]

I am creating something similar but for cooking and crafts classes, locally I will be happy to look at your software.
I looked at it but could not go into the software as there is no login that I could see. May be I have the wrong page. Looks really nice just what I saw. Curious, how long have you been working on this?

[cryptoinwestorka]

Hey @accts,

thanks for having a look at it. Here is the link to the preview. You can login from here.

I was building it around 3 months and learning from scratch about Bubble. These 3 months were in 2021 around October. I came back to developing this year and the last 2 weeks I have been repairing the app and moving it to the new flexbox engine.

If you are building sth similar, I would recommend then going for a ready made template - if you have an idea about developing in Bubble. What @bubble.helpers listed is a great repository of ready-made templates and there you mind find a template for crafts and cooking classes. I actually saw one you might use. Have a look at this
Why ready-made. It just kick starts your base and you are faster in terms of time to market. But if you are completely new, it could be overwhelming so you might start from scratch and learn the basics.

[accts]

Just a couple of things, and I too have the same issues in my app.
One is to make the login process more clear, I was a bit confused but that may be because of language issues for me.
The second is that consider using smaller pictures for list of classes on the page.
This layout is used too often now and begins to look generic. I think too many photos take away from the list of classes which are the main purpose and should be more prominent. So highlight the listings more.
The other is you want to show the listing, as many as possible without having to scroll. Most visitors don’t scroll on a new page to see what’s coming on the bottom. So show more classes on the upper part of the page, if you can maybe by making the photos smaller and putting more classes on each row.

In my app, I plan to have just an icon for a class listing such that I can put may be at least ten classes on the top part of the page.

Just some ideas for now. - Best, Charan

[cryptoinwestorka]

Hey Charan,

thanks for checking the app.

1. Could you describe what could I improve with the login process? What was unclear for you?

2. The second is that consider using smaller pictures for list of classes on the page.

So the images should be smaller for the event cards, is that what you mean? So I should come up with idea how to highlight the amount of listings and information about the events BEFORE highlighting the event “poster”, right?

3. The other is you want to show the listing, as many as possible without having to scroll.

Yeap, that’s a big one. I was thinking of showing maybe a list on top of “Happening This Week” events so that users can see immediately without scrolling most relevant event time-wise.

How would you approach this on the mobile @accts ? Right now I have 1 column. Would you try to squeeze 2 events per row on mobile view?

[accts]

I will look some more and will get back to you tomorrow.

[accts]

Hi, I have gotten sort of overwhelmed by what I am trying to do, so have not had time to look at your app. I am so sorry about that. I hope you are making progress. I will try to do that. I guess it is never too late get inputs.

[cryptoinwestorka]

No worries. Thanks for giving me an update. Normally people forget and get on with their lives but you are different in that regard - so big thumbs up for you!

Yes, I am progressing.

When you have time and are replying to the old topics, I wanted to pick your brain on another subject. The app is already close to my MVP in terms of functionality. However, is really lacking in terms of design since I didn’t start with any template that had nice building blocks.
How would you at this point integrate some of the template building blocks like Introduction - Canvas Manual or I was looking at https://tasky0.bubbleapps.io/account Is there only copy/paste method available ?

[accts]

My experience is that you will keep modifying your design one little step at a time. It is really really hard to pick one template or design and just stick with it. I have tried template and pre-dawn designs but then get stuck somewhere, and redo it. My thought for my app, and I am quite a bit behind you in terms of its readiness is to get someone (reasonable price d of course) to give an artistic review. May be redesign all the iconic pictures so they look custom rather than stock art. In your case, I think hand drawn art showing people dancing in the style will be much more attractive. Try Fiver etc.
My bias is against cookie cutter art. Also don’t overwhelm the user with too much art and keep the art at a lower wattage than the listing itself.
Just some ideas for now.
I will go look at your app again. Do you have a new version now?

[cryptoinwestorka]

Cool. Thanks for your thoughts!

My app is constantly evolving. It’s the same link as before Bachatainfulencers

Updating some of the components. Adding a bit more functionalities here and there.

Your app sounds interesting. When you have a state ready for review let me know. I will be happy to have a look at it.