SMACK app: Group Communication 12+

Issues

I just want to recommend making it easier to identify what is causing notifications. My smack social app usually has a number of notifications, and it can be challenging to clear them.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for the feedback!

We're currently working on a way to clear all notifications. We're gathering feedback on how people use the notification page. When you open the page it marks all notifications as read, and then keeps them in order. This lets you reference them in the future so you know when an import was completed, how long ago you refreshed your member list etc.

Individual notifications in the page can be deleted by tapping and holding. You can change which notifications you receive by tapping the ... at the top right of the page. We're working on simplifying and clarifying the notification options.

Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns! I'm always available by direct messaging @SMACK in the app.

Not at all how it was described to me

When I first heard about this app, it was at a pitch competition, and the CEO described calendars and chat tools, but failed to mention anything about a discover feature.

I'm about to start working on building a group, and quickly realized this is NOT the tool I'm looking for. There's no calendar, just a tab full of random events (they call them drifts, so get used to using lingo no one in their right mind would have any idea what you're talking about), a discovery page, group management, and settings (pretty sure I'm missing one, but oh well).

Anyways, if you're trying to build a group and send them to the app, I have very little doubt they're going to get lost trying to figure out to find the group specific events and wind up deleting the app and just waiting for texts. Not to mention the discovery page will probably cause more mayhem for you as a group manager, especially if you're trying to create a group.

Also, you can tell they're not taking any feedback from the negative reviews because they shoot out the EXACT same canned response to everyone that leaves a bad review.

I'm off to find an app that actually works for my needs!

Developer Response ,

We take feedback in our on-app live support chat. It reaches our head of Product (me) directly and lets us send screenshots back and forth and discuss design changes and feature needs. We're very transparent on upcoming changes and take feedback very seriously. You'll note that all two of the past negative reviews were about a marketing campaign and had the same concern, so they received the same response.

You did not use the support chat so I'll answer your questions here.

1. The event feed/discovery.

The discovery section is a small horizontal slider that appears below events that you make. Events that you create appear in chronological order, and fill the feed vertically from the top, pushing the discovery slider to the bottom. We have not had any reported issues where an organization's members have been confused on this point, but are open to design changes if that changes.

2. They're called Drifts as a branding thing.

We've found the word "Event" can make something sound too formal and a "hang out" or "activity" can be too informal. We're still reviewing and may get rid of the word. We appreciate the feedback!

3. The Discovery page

Is going to be relocated away from the bottom navigation bar to simplify the app. This update will be in the next six weeks.

Other updates to the UI include simplifying the iconography so the feed will be a calendar icon, filter options will be consolidated, Drift (event) feed items will look more like group chats, event information for Drifts will be at the top of a chat instead of in a separate page. We're also speeding up the bulk import process, adding scheduled announcements, and custom reminder times.

4. Feedback

Every new organization gets a personal message from me when they make an account. This starts a live one-on-one conversation where I answer all questions, explain features, take feedback and discuss design changes and updates.

By the way all of the design changes and updates mentioned in point 3 came from feedback in my conversations with our users in the app in the last four weeks.

I don't check our app-store reviews as often, usually about twice a month. On-app I usually respond within 10 minutes.

Best,
Kent

Must have for friend groups

This app is so useful. There’s been so many times where our group has planning has gone haywire with just being unorganized and being unable to plan things properly. But this app fixes that completely. Planning is now so easy and your plans can go out to whoever you want to see them. You can make groups of people for multiple different things whether it be your basketball team, your family, or even just a large group of friends. I highly recommend.