[For context: A-Spec people are incredibly diverse, with varying relationship preferences and types of Aromanticism/Asexuality. We’re aiming to create an app that will help connect Asexual and/or Aromantic people across the world and give them the power to search for the specific relationships they want]
Welcome to Part 3 on the features we expect to have in the A-Café Beta. See A-Café Features: Part 1 here. See A-Café Features: Part 2 here.
Last time we went over how to contact individuals and groups that you’re interested in, but what do these meeting spaces look like and how can you make your own? (Keep in mind that some features may not look exactly the same in the official Beta, as the photos presented are from the prototype).
Chatrooms
Let’s start with private chatrooms first. You can only invite someone to a chatroom if they’ve accepted your friend request first (or if you’ve accepted someone else’s request). When you accept an invitation to a chatroom, you’ll be taken to the “chatroom” page. Here, you can see a list of all the people you’re currently chatting with, as well as the last thing that was said.
By clicking on one of the rooms, you’ll end up in a space where you can get to know one another better. If you want to have more than one person in the room, simply add them by their username.
Groups
With A-Café, groups come in many forms: A non-profit organization, a Hollow Knight speedrunning club, a local hangout for A-Specs like you, and so on. As long as everything stays legal and safe, groups can be made for pretty much any reason!
There are, of course, rules that Group Moderators must follow, but we’ll go into that next time to avoid making this post too long.
Group Feed
When you get to the group feed page, you’ll see the most recent announcement or question made by a Group Mod. These important messages are always found at the top of the screen, separated by a gray bar so they’ll never be lost.
If you want to see past important Mod posts, simply click on the “Announcements” button at the top middle.
To read through the Group rules, click the “Rules” button near the top left.
To see upcoming group events, click the “Events” button near the top right.
To view the most recent posts by fellow group members, go to the bottom half of the screen. You can scroll through all of them and leave comments if you so choose. There will likely be a way to filter posts by categories other than “most recent”, if users would like that.
How Do I Make a Group?
To create your own group, provide the required information (such as group name, meeting times, and so on). When you’re done filling out this form, you’ll be taken to your new group space. Here, you’ll be able to fine-tune group settings.
For example, if you want to keep meeting spots private from non-members, go into edit mode and make the proper adjustments.
Reporting Bugs, and Other Final Thoughts
Before we end this mini series on expected Beta features, I want to address how to ask for help. If you navigate to the “Contact Us” page, you’ll see a basic text box. Above that, there is a smaller box where you can specify what you’re contacting us about.
So far, there are 4 categories: “Ask a Question”, “Report a Bug”, “Report a User(or Group)”, and “Feedback”.
When we enter the Beta stage, this will be an extremely useful tool; it will enable us to catch errors, and understand what users like or don’t like.
But until then, thank you so much for reading this series! We appreciate your time, and hope you have a wonderful rest of your day!
