The Road to Beta—A Look Back
Plus a peek at what lies ahead
Since its inception, Status has been deeply committed to building a user-friendly product that delivers on its promise of fully decentralized chat, wallet and browser. Building on nascent technologies is a marathon and not a sprint — and while our Beta release is an important milestone, we have a tremendous amount of work still ahead of us.
Beta is Polished, Not Perfect.
As a contained dry run, Beta testing surfaces insights that help refine a product release before launch. Following the release of Beta 0.9.21 last week, we paused briefly to reflect on how far we’ve come. Here’s a look back at the sometimes bumpy, but always innovative road to Beta.
Early UI Screens — Q4, 2017
- UXR feedback confirmed that users found the console based signup confusing.
- The profile menu was originally hidden behind a hamburger menu. We revamped the profile, moved it to its own tab and removed the hamburger.
- The DApp browser was hidden behind an @browse chat command.
- The Discover tab was removed (we hope to bring this back!) and the contacts tab was also removed and integrated into the Home and Chat flows directly, which was an improvement for new users.
- There was limited onboarding to help get new users orientated.
Some of our Most Significant Updates — Q1-Q2, 2018
UI Restructure
- Simplified and focused the app from 5 tabs (or 4 plus 1 hidden in a hamburger menu) to 3.
- Overhauled sign up and onboarding. We moved away from a clunky chat-based flow to a clear step by step guide.
- Re-introduced the signing phrase in a new way within the sign up flow to make the process easier.
- Created an action menu that had the major functionality of Status in one place to help orient users.
- Condensed and optimized setup and login steps for a better user journey.
- Streamlined the passphrase process, allowing users focus on getting acquainted, and only when ready, move to the wallet setup and account backup.
- Added help for seed phrase backup. Rather than do everything at once, the user can do it when they are ready.
CHAT Updates
- Redesigned the chat screen, improving the UI and menu.
- Added more robust emoji support and simpler messaging.
- Integrated chat with the wallet with in a completely new UI; unified the flow to enable sending and receiving assets in chat.
Wallet Updates
- Overhauled our wallet and introduced compatibility with other mnemonic wallets.
- Simplified the Profile tab with shortcuts to custom settings.
- Enabled users to set their own local currency, customize notifications, and get help directly in the app.
- Added ERC20 and ERC721 support to the wallet. You can now view tokens and collectibles like CryptoKitties.
- Added an ERC20 and ERC721 asset browser to easily add any assets right into the wallet.
DApp Development
- Improved DApp browsing and transacting; an incredible amount of work went into making this a reality.
- Added DApp compatibility across the board.
- Introduced DApps — like Airswap — that optimized their UI for Status.
- Added a new DApp browser UI, a curated DApp list, and a new way to easily open any DApp by typing in the URL.
Advanced Menu Options and Security Enhancements
- Introduced a best-in-class informed-consent analytics opt-in screen, with a double opt-in. We went to great lengths to inform and educate users on their choices. Behind the scenes the community feedback is helping us make a better product.
- Introduced an in-app help center so users can quickly find answers, submit a bug, or suggest and vote on new features.
- Added an Advanced menu; developers can toggle the network for testing.
- Added a Developer mode for dev-specific features; adventurous users can set their own boot nodes and mail servers.
- Added the ability for users to set their own RPC URL.
The Road Ahead
Throughout the Alpha phase we made the hard decision to delay or remove certain features. With the Beta version, we hope to revisit many of these. Included on this list:
- Group chats.
- ENS registration and in-app support
- Universal links
- Notification sounds
- Improved chat moderation
- Enhanced chat encryption
- Multi language support
- Improve transaction flow
- Integrated SNT utility
- Light client support
- Status Desktop version
Curious about Status Beta? See it in action.
If you already have Status installed updating is easy.
- iOS: Within TestFlight, make sure you see Version 0.9.21 and tap ‘INSTALL’
- Android: If you are not automatically asked to update, go to Status.im in the PlayStore and click ‘Update’ there.
If you haven’t installed Status already, here’s how you can download:
