roomy, open now
come in, we have a lot to share
I should start with community software - put simply, a digital Café where people can hangout and do activites together. Many have tried to work on this idea but end up sticking to one niche. A lot of energy was poured in, but the ecosystem wasn’t there to back it up.
You only get two choices - become a giant mediocre blob, or get one thing exactly right. Roomy chooses the latter. Being in an early stage is a blessing, since it allows us the freedom to do a lot of experimentation and break years of compounded design choices and start fresh.
I want to share many such decisions we’ve taken to provide an intentional experience.
One at a time
The famous social-chatting app Discord, gives you eagle eye view of all your servers as a list. It does not provide any way to hide them, because It wants you to multi-task. It encourages checking every single update and context switch between conversations.
Roomy takes a different approach.
We want you to focus on one thing at a time, and give your full self to it. Switching is always intentional and only happens when you decide to, not when prompted to.
Threads
Discord has excellent chat experience, it allows you to quickly catch up with friends. Forums on the other side are self-contained discussions, and people seem to prefer them for meaningful conversations. Discord tried to tackle this by introducing Threads. In their words :
A Thread is a quick way to branch a conversation off of a channel’s main feed without removing it from the channel itself.
Now credits where due, It’s really good idea but implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
We want to focus and reward quality interactions and Threads were chosen. Threads are first-class citizens in Roomy.
Toggle at top allows you to switch between Chat & Threads.
It is designed like a tactile switch to provide satisying feedback on every click. In Threads view, recent discussions bubble up so you can focus on active ones. Avatar bubbles act as a quick visual cue, letting you gauge whether something is worth your attention.
I consider threads to be successor of forums, it allows you to see the full history and get updates in real-time. We use Threads extensively while designing to discuss ideas and changes. It allows to keep discussion tidy & to-the-point without the fear of it getting lost in sea of chats.
We were hard at work and not afraid to start from scratch if we feel things are not right. In fact the current version is an overhauled client both in terms of Design and Architecture.
Quick shout out to my gang: Meri, Zicklag, Fish, Lou, Missy and other friends at roomy server. It’s been a blast to overthink every single detail.
The door is open - Roomy
we’re more than happy to have you :)
Good reads
Few of my buddies also have some thoughts.
