[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]
Hey everyone! Since everything is a work in progress right now, I figured I’d take the time to explain the app’s features. This will be a multi-part series on what we expect to have in the Beta version of A-Café. You can view Part 2 here. There’s a lot to go through so let’s get started!
Onboarding
When you first join A-Café, you’ll be asked to input your email and a secure password.
After that, your age and username will be requested. Keep in mind that your username can be changed at any time.
Once that’s done, you can choose to jump straight into the app, or fill out some of your profile before getting started. If you jump straight in, just remember to come back to your profile later; it’ll be extremely difficult for others to find you if there’s no descriptive information available.
Homebrew
Once you’re done with the onboarding process, you’ll be taken to the A-Café Homepage (a.k.a Homebrew, heh heh). There are tons of options at this point, so let’s start with the main draw of A-Café.
Geolocation/GPS
“GPS Search”, takes you to a page where you can search for the relationships you want. This is done by entering a location, a search radius, and special tags like “Aromantic”.
For example, let’s say you wanted to find an Asexual group within 10 miles of your house.
For location, you’d put your city or town.
For search radius, you’d put “Within 5 miles”,
And then you’d add as many tags as you want: “Asexual”, “Asexual Club”, “Friends”, and so on.
Then you’d press the search button and let GPS do the rest.
Groups
Once GPS is done searching, you’ll be met with a list of groups that meet your search criteria. If you don’t see one that strikes your fancy, consider broadening your search radius or making a group of your own!
But what if you want to find individuals near you, rather than groups?
People
To find specific individuals, you can either press the “GPS Search” button again, or you can press the “Sort by” button near the top of the screen.
The “Sort by” button lets you filter your search results by “group” or by “individual”.
So, if you wanted to find a platonic partner who is also Asexual, you can simply navigate to the “Sort by” button and press the “People” icon. Remember that the people you find are based on your previous search criteria, so if you want a romantic partner instead, consider going back to the GPS section and changing your search criteria.
What do you do once you find someone you’re interested in? Well, Part 2 will delve into Profiles and Chatting! But until then, thanks for reading!