As Pride Month comes to an end, Gorilla Arm share how they made sure the XConfessions app is suitable for all its users — especially those from the LGBTQI+ community.

Last year, Gorilla Arm had the pleasure to work with the unbelievably talented Erika Lust — the ethical and award-winning adult filmmaker. …

Not unlike the beloved/hated “splash screen”, almost every app you download right now has a bunch of screens introducing what the app does, what features it has, and how you can use them. Some designers say that if your UX is on point, you don’t need these screens, but let’s look at what role these screens are actually playing, and make an informed decision about whether they are necessary from a UX perspective.

What is an app introduction?

Going by a range of names, including “Product Tour” and “Tutorial”, you’ve definitely seen these in 95% of the apps you have downloaded. Right after the splash…

So you’re probably wondering, “how hard can it be to build the perfect splash screen?” And you’re probably right to think that — we’re talking about a screen which is going to be visible for just a couple of seconds (if that). And a screen that seems to just flash a logo at the user before vanishing. So surely it can’t be that complicated.

Wrong.

The perfect splash screen hides away a few key functionalities that your app should have, both from a user experience perspective and a functionality one. Whilst you might not see those functionalities in action, they…

Probably one of the best/worst things about running an app agency is that you quickly realise that almost everybody has an amazing app idea which they want to share with you. And while most of them are solid, useful, potentially profit-making ideas, a lot will be fundamentally flawed in one way or another.

One of those common flaws is the user engagement strategy. That is to say, what strategy do you have (a) to get the user to download your app and sign up, and (b) to keep your users coming back for more later. We’re going to focus here…

Last year, the Gorilla Arm team designed and built the COIN app — a secondary market place for rare art and collectibles, connecting sellers with both experts in their field, and regular buyers. From the very start we knew that meaningful recommendations, to both experts and users, would add enormous value to the platform. Therefore, we used our knowledge of machine learning and graph theory to design a new recommendation engine — one that is generic enough to be used in different app scenarios and which is easily extensible and adaptable at the same time.

Tagging the data
The engine works…

Last weekend, I rounded up 35 people from my coworking space with the mission to build an app in just one weekend. And we absolutely nailed it.

One of the things I love about coworking spaces is that you have this incredibly rich mix of talent, all huddled together in one place. Architects working next to programmers, sat next to graphic designers, going for coffee breaks with copywriters. And we’re all there doing our own thing, trying to make enough money to survive, because we decided to ditch our regular jobs and try and make it on our own.

That…