HackMD
Builder Mobile App. L2
Draft Note
DRAFT PROPOSAL
Last updated: 08.02.2024
What next features the v2 of the Builder app should have?
In this draft, I laid out all possible additions and improvements. Look forward to all comments on what will be the most beneficial, so I can create a scope for the v2!
My personal view is that L2 support is an absolute must-have and I think the
- Explore screen
- Proper Dao pages
- Proposal reading
- Small improvements
will be the most beneficial.
Android support is extremely interesting, as it’ll open the bidding and voting from the app. Plus, I ran polls in Builder, Purple and Nouns Collective Daos and the voting shows that more people use Android.
Please leave the comments here(just select the text and click “Comment”). Or on Builder Discord. Or Warpcast.
Draft Note
L1
Dao as part of Proposal 40 funded the creation of iOS widgets that allow tracking everything that happens in the Builder protocol DAOs right from their phone Home Screen.
After some consideration, it’s been decided to build and launch the full-featured app in the App Store, as it will provide easier setup, better usability and more mobile features.
On 29.08.2023 app went live on the Apple App Store. App can also be found on its marketing site: builderapp.wtf.
After the launch many people installed and used the app to track the Daos they are part of.
Even though the main purpose of the first version was to create an easier widget onboarding experience I have added several features to make the app more interesting to use on its own:
- I have introduced the Feed screen that aggregates all proposals from all followed DAOs, so you can see in one place how many props you have to vote on.
- Basic auction tracking and Dao pages have been added to make it easier to track auctions.
- Proposal reading has been added using a modified version of nouns.build website (when you click on a proposal, the website page loads in the app, so you can read the proposal)
Those additions, even though quite limited, made the app more useful on its own, as can be seen from the analytics. Below are some graphs to see the App usage since the beta testing opened:
Weekly screen views. (How many screens people viewed in the given week. Similar to the View Count for the website)
Unique weekly active users (How many unique people opened the app at least once in the given week).
As can be seen from the charts, there has been a gradual reduction in usage since the launch in the App Store (end of the summer). One of the reasons is the fact that I had to remove all of the web links from the app, that have been available in beta and allowed to vote/bid staying in the app. Unfortunately, Apple has a crazy stance on anything related to NFTs and doesn’t allow any bidding or voting functionality to be available to users. But even with those functionality removed, the app hasn’t seen “no app open” weeks.
Additionally, the mobile app has been open-sourced, so community could build on it in the future.
L2 Support
Currently, the app and widgets support only Ethereum Mainnet DAOs. With the launch of L2 support, many DAOs are planning on migrating to L2 and won’t be able to stay up to date via widgets or the app.
With this update, I will make sure that the app fully supports all L2 blockchains and DAOs and that people can easily migrate.
Plus, activity will probably increase due to lower “participation fees” and we need to make sure the app is available to all those new users that will come to the builder ecosystem.
Explore screen
With L2 blockchains support it’ll be cheaper to create and join a DAO, so the total number of them will probably grow. To account for more DAOs and more interest in joining I want to introduce the “Explore” screen that will allow you to explore and find DAOs that might interest you.
My current line of thought is to make it in the TikTok format. One DAO at a time. Art in maximum size. Core information is readily visible. Want to learn more? Click to open DAO’s full page. Like it? Double-click to save it and start tracking its auction and activity. With all chains mixed for true superchain participation.
Link to video of the prototype ↗
Missed Events
Sometimes you are out and miss things in your DAO. I propose to add “Stories” for the DAOs that will show what happened since you last checked.
Link to video of the prototype ↗
What proposals have passed? How many new auctions happened, and what is the treasury inflow? What are the most important discussions that happened?
As Feed
Also, instead of the stories they could be added as Feed elements, that will show events chronologically.
Which one looks more useable/helpful?
More Informative Dao pages
V1 of the app was geared towards widgets functionality and had minimal information on the Dao page. Only current auction and proposals. I want to greatly expand the Dao page to include all of the DAO-related information, so people will spend more time in the app, staying in the loop and exploring new DAOs.
Proposal reading in the app
In addition to information-rich Dao pages, proposal reading in the app can be added (currently it loads a web page of the proposal inside the app). Proper reading with black theme, saved read progress, votes with reason, all in the app.
Android
The app currently supports only iOS, but there is one more ecosystem: Android. Not only does it have easier store policies, but allows you to install apps from external marketplaces or directly. This freedom allows apps with unrestricted access to payments/operations with NFTs and crypto. So Android app can support the auction bidding and voting right from the app!
Porting the app(in its current form) to Android will not be a big problem, as 70% of the code will be reused(widgets will have to be recreated from 0, but the app itself will be reused to 90%+). The only big addition that will be required on the app side is wallet connect and interaction functionality(bidding and voting), as this will have to be created from the ground up.
I made polls on Farcaster to see what platforms subscribers of Builder, Purple and Nouns Collective channels use. Here is the results and Android is the most used.
Notifications
Full notifications support can also be added to the app. You will be able to get notifications about auction and governance events. Fully selectable and adjustable.
Want to only be notified about the ending auction? Just turn on those notifications. Only want to get notified when the proposal becomes open to voting and nothing else? Only select those.
Smaller Improvements
There are also additional improvements that are of a lesser scope, but will improve the quality of the app:
App speed improvements.
Make the app faster and nicer to use.
Better Widgets
- Add “Tap to Refresh” for the auction widgets. Widgets refresh automatically every 15 min maximum(system limit to preserve energy). But with iOS 17, you can now add a button to update it. So I’ll add a click on the text to load the latest auction data on request.
- Have all your DAOs in one governance widget. Currently, you need to create separate governance widgets per your DAOs. With this update, the widget will become more configurable, so you’ll be able to select what DAOs to display. Only one or all of your 5 DAOs in the same widget? Absolutely.
- Support pending proposals in Auction&Governance widget.
- Other updates by user requests…
Better widget setup instructions
One of the main complaints is the general complexity of the widget setup on iOS. I want to make interactive in-app instructions that will visually show every step of the process to make it easier for people to set up widgets.
Costs
To be added based on the final scope of the proposal.
About Me
@iamng_eth. I launched the original Builder app and I worked on many projects in the Nouns ecosystem. All other nounish and not only projects you can find here.
