The only way to get humanity out of the paws of the internet

Good day! In this article we would like to tell you about a project that helps people find a company for sports, hobbies or just relaxing.

It's been eight months since our first article in the corporate blog on Megamind was published. And now, when the Brain has returned home to Habr, we are writing a new "introductory" article and tell you about our service, which has undergone many changes during its existence. We'll tell you a little about our project, as well as the packs we faced.
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In our application there are no neural networks, parallel computing and complex cryptography, the service has a simple client-server architecture. We will not be able to show off innovative methods and super cool solutions, however, we will talk about the process of creating with me. Perhaps our experience will be useful for young developers when, like us, after universities and colleges, they will want to try themselves in this difficult profession.

Our project was originally called “Ridewithme”, and the word “Ride” always limited us a little, giving the application a “catholic” character. When the number of users increased, we started receiving letters with requests to expand the list of activities: we were asked to add swimming, gymnastics and other sports. The concept of “roll, roll, roll” did not correspond at all with walking a rope or visiting an exhibition. We began to think about changing the name or other ways to address this issue. Shortly before that, we sent our logo on a business lynch to the studio of Artemy Lebedev, in order to learn a third-party, authoritative opinion, and, perhaps, to change something. Since the consideration of applications takes a long time, and sometimes does not occur at all, we managed to safely forget about it. Once, during the next discussion, this information emerged in our memory and we climbed to look, as they say: “Why? But what if?"

And, "suddenly" happened, but it happened so that you will not forget. The application was reviewed and accepted, we were assessed by Tyoma himself. However, the review of our icon was not verbose, as is usually the case. “It reads MERDE WITH,” he wrote. He did not translate, well, it is for the best. Google's translator handled this task quite well, we found out what MERDE really was, laughed, laughed, wrote it down in the then still small list of packs, and came to grips with relootyping and re-naming.

The logo is full of information, here you: and the pin, and the full name of the service fit, and the letters are large. Not a logo, a dream!

See with my own eyes

We spent a lot of time trying to come up with a new, good icon and a name that would most fully reflect the multisport and polyhobiness of our application. It took more than one day and more than one night. In the end, we decided that by getting rid of “Ride” we would achieve our goal and our users would gain freedom. So was born withme - a service that helps to find a company for hockey, football, slek-line, gymnastics, charging, jogging, exhibitions, chess, travel, and much, much more.

We tried to make withme as simple and clear as possible in order not to distract the user from the most important - content. To a large extent, we were inspired by the standard Apple applications, in particular, "Music". It is “Music” that has a great tap-bar, which we liked so much.

We were very kind to all Apple guidelines, which is why it is difficult to find designer delights in withme. However, it was not without interesting ideas. For example, our map, which opens on full screen. We did not see such a solution in any application, and, thanks to Apple's MapKit library, we implemented quite an interesting display of such a super standard element as a map. Next, we will show you the first concepts, icons and buttons, and also explain why they were or were not used.

One of the first design concepts withme. The idea with beautiful, stylish pictures seemed successful until we tried to download our feed through (2G). Not at all comme il faut when one feed cell loads for about 10 seconds. Understandably, you can reduce the image, but on a Retina-display it will look awful.

A selection of first sports icons. Minimalist, however, it turned out a very dull feed.

The first tab-bar options, somewhere around this stage, we realized that Cupertino design is the best solution for many elements of our application.

Indian programmers took over Irik's mind and wanted to get it with me, but we stopped the invocation of the design code in time.

We have done a lot of work on the way from the layouts to the finished product, we have revised our views, reworked a lot of times and now we are satisfied. But this, of course, is far from over. Why? Yes, because we have not yet added all the bugs features that are conceived. Everything new, according to the law of the genre, will not fit into the existing framework and we will again take up the hammer of design. Below you can take a look at our current design. We will be glad to hear your opinion in the comments!

"It won't be any better ..."
Irik Usmanov, Designer.

At the time when we were hard at work on changing the logo and name, another big fact matured. The storm of discussions and emotions about our rebranding has subsided, we have safely reloaded everything into stor and inspired by the appearance of the updated withme. One day a message came from our friend: “Guys! Have you seen what Cosmopolitan has written about you? ”
We were shocked! About us, a small development team, wrote the world-famous glossy magazine. We did not buy Facebook, we didn’t sue Apple, Cosmopolitan just wrote about us. This news has made our day! Which of us think about this? We were looking forward to the next day, to finally see the number for January 2016 with a column about our application.

We severely punished Irik, namely, he was privileged to pick up the magazine, not to read or even open it before we meet. From the words of our friend, we already knew exactly what angle to look to the holes. And so, Irik appeared on the horizon, he hurriedly walked in our direction, waving his magazine. And we, no longer able to stand, went to meet him.

The magazine was open and 4 pairs of eyes went to the upper left corner of page number 169 ...

It is difficult to convey what we felt, an atomic explosion occurred inside, we, all four, were simply destroyed. Demolished by the blast wave of confusion, sadness, horror and frustration. We could not believe it ...

On page 169 in the upper left corner there was our application, which, we quote: “It will not let you suffer from loneliness - it will find friends for playing sports!” Everything is fine! - you will say, but no, not everything, far away, damn it, not everything ... There in the column was our old icon, and our old name. A curtain. In conclusion, I would like to note that, moving away from the shock, we were nevertheless glad that we got into Cosmo. Our idea appealed to the editors, and this, too, is worth something.

Now, having redesigned our application, we are improving the technical part withme, we work with user requests, carefully read the reviews in the markets and correct errors.

Since our service allows people to unite in real life, we consider it our duty to hold events for our users. Fortunately, the weather is better and more conducive to this. Most recently, we organized a ride on bikes, skateboards and longboards. (Yes, yes, this is a reference to “Ride”, but we won't buy it anymore, that's enough). We had a great time with our users. This meeting brought us a lot of real feedback. Live communication with people is better than communication by mail, in messengers, social networks, etc. You will always hear a comprehensive opinion about your product / service, not constrained by the official framework of communication by correspondence. You can poke a photo report from our event here.

Now we have some disagreements about the spelling of the title itself, we are tired of arguing and want to bring this issue up for public discussion. We offer you three spellings, vote, please, for the one you like in the poll:

We are in the AppStore and GooglePlay

UPD: Guys! We have just reached ProductHunt for us, upvotes are very important, which you can deliver. We will be very grateful!
Put apvoit!