World-class UI showcases needed to grow Bubble

Meta
1

Hey crew!

[EDITED] I’m sorry. My intention on this post was truly about a need for better design on Bubble, and the ability for new users to see it. The secondary point, the quality you can get of out-of-the box plugins is not on par with the modern design you get out of the box from bigger platforms, was driven by my frustrations at the limitations in UX-UI design using strictly no-code and available plugin/templates affordably.

However, there were parts of the message that were being interpreted as disparaging. It is never my intention to provoke anything of the sort and I ask for forgiveness in failing that. I have removed parts of the original post to reflect that. I should have done so when I wrote the last sentence of this post.

I was reading this thread about quality of plugins and some developer’s inability to keep up with plugin support because of small user base and inability to sell many plugins in a year.

I agree and the solution is simple: get more paying users on Bubble and support their growth so that they pay for more plugins and templates and support the growth of developers. How? I don’t actually know, but I thought I’d write my story and present an opinion:

Bubble is an amazing platform and the only workable full stack no-code solution that I’ve liked enough to dedicate the time to learning. My background is marketing, minor economics. I taught myself print design when I was working my first job because I didn’t like the designers I had access to (their work, not the people). It’s mind-boggling how many “designers” have no idea what a margin is.

After print I moved on to Wix, because killer ads and amazing UI. Back then Wix had no back end so I started learning Joomla, Drupal, Flask, Python, etc… and gave up before becoming proficient. Then I found Bubble and instantly saw the potential.

For the two years I’ve been experimenting with the platform I’ve dedicated my time to design and to trying to reproduce things I’ve seen on Behance, Dribble, Wix, etc… I’m not quite there yet, but I can do some pretty cool things and I want you to be able to as well. I think the MAIN (remaining) reason Wix, Squarespace, SiteBuilder and other UI builders have a broader user base than Bubble is that there are very few truly well designed, eye-catching websites made with Bubble with complex UI interactions that truly DELIGHT the user in existence. After all, when a user sees a super-well built site ending with “you could do this too”, they are very likely to discover what makes Bubble so amazing.

So I’m making it my mission to create beautiful front ends for display and curate a collection of the best Bubble designs to show “outsiders” and bring them in here.

Thanks for reading, let me know if you think I’m overreacting.

2 Likes
2

what …

3

I think what we also need is complex demo apps so people can really see what’s possible with Bubble. The showcase section on the Bubble site doesn’t really showcase any apps that a user can explore easily. They’re mostly just landing pages.

You have to do some digging to find out exactly how far you can go with Bubble.

6 Likes
4

Agreed. But most Bubble apps are made by people who already have a good understanding of the problems of their audience. Mostly these apps don’t need to “delight” from a visual perspective, they just need to solve some pain.

3 Likes
5

:wink: i’d say the sites featured on and UI on the VP are pretty up there.

1 Like
6

Hey @duke.severn!

Vlad@Zeroqode here.

We were trying really hard, but could not see any logical connection between having a lot of plugins under few publishers and making really nice front ends (and pretty much everything else you said).

Zeroqode as a company is regularly bringing in a decent influx of new users, traffic and paying customers to Bubble, that are free (and encouraged) to use products of all the makers in the ecosystem (and they actively do).

We also sponsor a lot of promotion and are helping with a lot of things both on the forum and outside of it (on places like Product Hunt, for instance).

We’re not the only ones doing all those things, but there are not (yet) a lot of Bubble companies or devs that have the resources to do so in such volumes.

Does that make these few smell bad to you too?

We (as most of the good folks here) are genuinely interested for a lot of reasons in Bubble community growing and flourishing, and we are investing in a lot of work, energy and resources in it every single day, literally.

So if you really want to help everyone by making nice front ends - this is awesome (it even looks like we may have helped you with this a tiny bit already).

But why you have to try to make us look (or smell) bad while you’re on it is beyond us :slight_smile:

9 Likes
7

Amen! The constant bashing of @ZeroqodeSupport et al is getting really annoying. A healthy ecosystem, especially a young one, needs players such as you. I’m glad you’re advancing the Bubble cause and keep up the good work!

6 Likes
8

12 Likes
10

What smells like oligopoly or monopoly to you smells a lot like meritocracy to me. Yes, a few users make a large portion of the useful plugins & templates. No, that isn’t a problem. These people aren’t monopolists looking to fleece their fellow users. They are champions of Bubble & no-code and they do a lot of work in expanding not only the user base of Bubble, but the usefulness and usability of Bubble - Often at a very low rate of return.

5 Likes
11

@vladlarin I realise what you mean and I wanted to apologize. I’ve edited the original post. My every interaction with you has been stellar and I should never have pointed out anyone in particular. I’ve edited the post to reflect that.

7 Likes
12

No worries mate, now let’s go make those world-class UI showcases happen together :sunglasses:

5 Likes