Help us 🎨 rebuild the features page!

luceos

Hey 👋 everyone,

Last year I rebuilt the website flarum.org 🚀 with the stable version just out the door and while doing so I found that the features page was very outdated. Not wanting to delay the release of the new website and not knowing how to reinvigorate that page I just released without it 🤦

The features page has been sorely missed though 🩹. Coincidentally I ran into someone on the Laravel Discord just the other day who was interested in connecting himself as a designer to an open source project. We chatted a bit and soon he began a first draft of a features page after researching Flarum from his end.

@victorparedes thereafter was soon on-boarded into the team and his first responsibility will be to completely design that features page from the ground up. We'd love to get your help with this!

❓️ The Ask

Can you help us clarify what features of Flarum caused you to try and stick to it? Comparisons to other software won't be included on the features page, but can be used to clarify your point.

We'd love to hear about the things that positively surprised you, things that warmed your heart or which made it a no-brainer to choose Flarum for your community.

010101

luceos

Fast. Even the most minimal WordPress theme sometimes is not as fast as Flarum I’ve noticed.
App-like. Who doesn’t want their forum to be more like an app out of the box?
Good-bye full page refreshes. For the most part.
Mobile experience. There is talk about re-doing the mobile experience one day. Well, I hope it doesn’t get messed up because I love the mobile experience. It is what keeps me here. I’m on my phone way more than my laptop. Swipe gestures? Yes, please. Thank you.
Comes with basic interaction features out of the box (likes)
Instant actions, like the big sites. Ever tap a like button on a WordPress site or other forum? Sometimes, depending on the plug-in, you tap and wait, then the button changes. When I first saw things like tapping “like” were instant I was like, “finally!” These developers get it!
Looks. The default Flarum theme still holds up. It looks good. Minimal. Other forums out of the box just look dated.
Notifications. You don’t always get this type of notifications system with other forums.
Permissions are easy to set.
Great community extensions.
FAST. I already said this but seriously: I use Flarum as a blog. And a forum at another site (I have 2 installations currently). I’ll see a really cool WordPress theme and for a minute I’ll think, maybe I should switch back to WordPress… but then I can’t. Flarum loads so much faster! Especially after an initial load. And again, the mobile experience… 😍

Walys

In two words: Flat Design
In three words: Simply, Lightweight, Fast
In four words: Simply, Lightweight, Fast, Moderm
In five words: Simply, Lightweight, Fast, Moderm, EasyUse

At first I have some doubts with Discourse vs Flarum. Now the doubts are solved 😆
I just hope that the path for the new versions does not change much the initial idea of this project.
Long life for flarum!

Justoverclock

extensibility (is really developer-friendly)
speed
community behind the project

peopleinside

Can you help us clarify what features of Flarum caused you to try and stick to it?
We'd love to hear about the things that positively surprised you, things that warmed your heart or which made it a no-brainer to choose Flarum for your community.

Modern, beautiful and fully responsive design that support well mobile
Easy to install on a PHP server, thanks to composer was possible install without broke existent server managed by a control panel
Great communtiy support here

Thank you!

Braden

It has already generated me $500 since starting on 2021. So there's no guess its a good forum to install. The same questions are the same i try to find from my visitor's.

I think its because flarum is very fast!
The color mixing of tags on frontpage looks pretty!
Extensions that are created externally, they work easily without further user coding + the updates!
Flarum has its own way of rejecting bad inserted code's for example on CSS which makes it easier to notice mistakes.
Its approved ✅, approved ✅ everywhere you share!

Just wonderful! 🥳

Hari

There is no "how to" in home page like : Where to get it how to deploy..etc it would be great if you guys include a video in home page like a round tour about admin panel and extensions + a installation video.

Just two videos would really boost the experience for new users.

luceos

Hari we are tackling one thing at a time due to the limited time of our staff. A new or improved homepage is planned for later this year.
Please stay on topic 🙏

Hari

luceos sorry, i read the title only 🤦‍♂️

MikeJones

Fast, lightweight, great community!

RelicSystem

it was advertised as modern, a new take on something well established.
Active & friendly community, this I learned myself just by lurking and watching.
- seen some posts that anywhere else would have resulted in bans, locked/deleted posts within seconds but sat back and watched the community and developers debate what elsewhere would be labelled a troll...not a feature just an observation, the restraint is impressive.
It comes with all you need and not much more, build your own community with extensions and themes.

Justoverclock

RelicSystem It comes with all you need and not much more, build your own community with extensions and themes.

I think this should be into the page, I like it

Kalecgos

I am not sure whether this is an advantage as such and probably it is not an advantage of choice to show it on the "Features" page but nevertheless I mention it here for completeness because this is the advantage which holds me here:

Flarum community is not yet overcrowded with billions of professional developer teams as e.g. the WordPress comminity, which means there is still a lot of place for creativity.

Of course, I share most of the above-mentioned points, and first of all, I'd like to upvote its fresh default UI which was a decisive factor for me to use Flarum for my community and not yet another "traditional" forum engine.

P.S. No one yet mentioned it comes free of charge?

victorparedes

Happy Wednesday everyone.

First of all, thank you for all of your great suggestions! Below is a distillation of everyone's input. More detail about how this was compiled can be found at the bottom of this post under "Support Info."

Ask

Please take a look at this revised features list and let me know if there is anything important that you think should be included or maybe a better way to phrase something! Layout and imagery come in the next step!

Features List

Headline
Features you and your users will 🧡

1) Modern & Mobile Forward for an App-like Experience
Get modern interactivity with intuitive swipe features, just-in-time loading, powerful search, and more.

2) Use Flarum’s Minimalist UI or Design Your Own
Easily white label your forum’s appearance in the administration dashboard or dive into the documentation and gain complete control over the look and feel of your forum.

3) No Bloat + Extensibility
Flaurm is lean and modular, offering a selection from over 500 (and growing) core and community supported extensions to add only the features your forum needs.

4) Did We Mention That Flarum is (Really) Fast?
Because Flarum’s frontend is a Single Page Application, it is very fast. No more full-page reloads!

Support Info

The order of these features was determined based on the frequency with which each was mentioned, which you can view here:
Flarum Features Count

The wording is a amalgamation of community input contrasted with the verbiage used by some of the other players in our space, which you can take a look at below:
Competitor Features List

victorparedes

Hey everyone! Over the past week I’ve finalized the copy and completed these illustrations which hopefully help to inject some visual points of interest to the list of features. By day, I’m a web developer and designer, but don’t often get to get super creative. I’ll tell you that it’s great to be able to get some creativity out.

Let’s take a look:

Flarum Features Page Mockup

Building a Flarum Visual Language

First and foremost, my goal is to emphasize the strongest point of our brand as it sat prior to the beginning of this project. I’ve added new elements where the brand’s existing elements were either limited or somehow already occupied. For example, the color palette is comprised of colors taken from the Flarum logo, as well as a new Canary Yellow color (see below).

Rules & Elements

The following rules apply for illustrations which depict the “Flarum visual universe.” Sticking to these will help create a strong brand while allowing for a significant amount of creativity.

Gradients - Generally, elements are drawn as flat shapes, but gradients can be used to suggest form, depth, or change in texture. This allows us to move from a 3d space to a 2d space at will.
Canary Yellow - Used to create space in which a character or an object can exist. The color can be used as a solid—a tabletop for example—or as a gradient suggesting depth. A combination of the two can be used, but must be separated by a foreground object in a Cézanne-esque fashion.
The Flarum Star of Ingenuity - The heart of Flarum is the ability to help people connect. The four-tipped star is a representation of simplicity and ingenuity that makes up the Flarum philosophy. Imagine that it makes an appearance every time someone uses Flarum to intuitively connect with another community member. This is a feature that can be animated later, which will spice up any marketing material or even future UI.

I hope this is an exciting new addition to the Flarum universe! 🥳

Justoverclock

victorparedes i really like this version. maybe the text can be a little bit bigger? but is awesome

010101

victorparedes I agree with all the ideas. Larger font, maybe a screenshot or two, and/or a video. But, I think the design is 🔥. It’s exciting to see!

victorparedes

Justoverclock Yep absolutely! When we put it into a blade view we can get the copy sized.

luceos

Justoverclock maybe the text can be a little bit bigger?

That was also my worry.

I think each section would need a detail page with:

examples from Flarum
maybe some user recommendations/quotes
related extensions perhaps

Then each section can have a CTA that says "more about .."

askvortsov

Love the design and pictures! A few comments:

I wonder if it would make sense to interleave the pictures with screenshots of Flarum
I love the minimalism, but I also wonder if it might make sense to include any grids/carousels to emphasize how many features there are in addition to the simplicity and elegance of the software.
I don't know how likely people are to click into detail pages vs. wanting everything on one page. Would be curious to hear others' thoughts on this.

luceos

askvortsov seeing your reply makes me wonder, this design is a reflection of the freshness that Flarum is, but not necessarily represents it completely. Yes it is bold, it is expressive, it does mention the key selling points of Flarum. But without seeing visual confirmation of that, they are still empty words.

Can we use screenshots, user recommendations, extension examples and other things to make our claims more tangible?

victorparedes

askvortsov
I think you're right that we should attempt to keep the entire story on the same page, if possible. In general, it is best practice to reduce the number of clicks between arrival and "conversion."

luceos
Yep examples would be fantastic to add.
Also, let's collab when we are ready to produce the video. That sounds like a fun project. I was thinking that a video on the index view might be most effective rather than on the Features page. On the features page, I think animating an action, maybe reply or a moderation action within the phone (on the second graphic) instead of having a static image. That could show the UX. Thoughts?

010101
I agree. I think we can refine everything and make it pretty great.