Fernwayer
A social media app for those who want to experience something truly unique and for those who are ready to provide it.
From Sep 2018 Till Now
Travel Social Media App
Mobile App Development
iOS, Web
Profile
There are two types of users in Fernwayer: Travelers and Experience Makers.
Experiences
Experience is a unique service provided by independent guides and local travel agencies.
Stories
Stories in Fernwayer are posts that allow travelers to share their adventures with others.
Bookings
Fernwayer provides Experience Makers with an easy-to-use bookings system.
About
Project Idea
Our client is a mature and experienced traveler. He approached us with the idea of creating a social media app that would connect travelers and experience makers, and allow both of them to share their adventures worldwide.
The Сlient Had
- Initial design
- Desired list of features
We were responsible for
- Further implementation of the project
- Release
- Post-release support
Team
Art Director
Project manager
UX/UI designer
Two iOS developers
Two frontend developers
Backend developer
Wireframes
The app was designed to be as simple as possible for users to easily interact with the app, regardless of their device.
Technology Stack
For Experience Makers
Experience in Fernwayer is a unique service provided for travelers by independent guides and travel business owners. Travelers can like them, comment, or share on social media.
Experience
For creating a new experience, you should fill out the form describing in detail the experience you are ready to provide, from the title and location to the qualification of an experience maker or the experience’s uniqueness. After the admin review, the experience is published, and you can edit it if something changes. Also, you can indicate whether the experiences are private (for lone travelers), for groups (like excursions and tours), or private groups (if a traveler wants to go on a date or spend time with friends and family).
Booking system
Fernwayer can synchronize with your digital calendar, or you can opt for its own booking system. Fernwayer provides you with booking based on your schedule and makes the process safe for both a Traveler and Experience Maker. Also, the Fernwayer booking system allows you to create events. An event is a particular case of a certain experience, with a set time, place, and list of people taking part in it. The app’s functionality allows you to define if the event is single-time or a part of a scheduled series, highlight the date and price. You can edit the price according to the price policy of your experience. For example, winter experiences can have a higher price during the Christmas holidays.
For Independent Travelers
Stories
Stories in Fernwayer are posts that allow travelers to show their adventures to other users so they can like or comment on them. It’s possible to add a photo, indicate the uniqueness, and write a small text review about an experience.
Community
Swagger score
Goals
Dreamtrips
Chatting system
Fernwayer has a system of chats that facilitates communication between different app roles. A Traveler can start a chat with an Experience Maker and talk about the experience or event, and vice versa, the chat can be initiated by the Experience Maker. Also, both of them can talk to a support agent of the app itself if any issues occur.
Also, when a new experience is created, the platform automatically starts a chat between a person who created the experience and a dedicated support agent for them to talk about the moderation process.
Challenges and Solutions
Here are the most notable challenges our team faced while developing Fernwayer.
Pictures displaying
Problem:
Fernwayer has three variants of displaying a photo in the Experience: portrait, landscape, and square. But from the beginning, when the user uploaded a photo for one format, it automatically adjusted to others, making the photo look strange.
Solution:
We added a crop feature so the user can choose a certain part of the photo for each display format.
Map
Problem:
Our team had to put the world map into a small part of the screen so users can see the whole world at a time, but the Maps SDK from Mapbox didn’t allow us to implement it.
Solution:
As Maps SDK didn’t have the necessary functionality, we had to create a workaround in order to provide this feature to the final users.
Other Challenges
Timezones in the events
Problem:
The experience maker can create an event in every part of the world, so we had to synchronize timezones for travelers to see all their booked experiences in one place.
Solution:
We decided not to limit the Experience Maker in creating Experiences, but to synchronize the time with a user’s device.
Countries with limited recognition
Problem:
Some countries have limited recognition as independent states from the UN members and observers. For example, South Ossetia isn’t recognized by Georgia, so our team had to decide how to display these territories on the app’s map.
Solution:
We prohibited users to create Stories and Experiences in such locations in order not to cause territory-based issues.
