Shout out to @blockheim and @deodad who did 15 variations of this over the last 3 weeks.

Here’s a quick behind-the-scenes summary of all these variations and how we arrived at the final design. 

We went through 3 phases in this process:

✨Phase 1✨ 
Main priority was updating channel labels (low risk, as we could always revert to this version if Phase 2 didn’t work out).

We tested a few variations throughout the week and ultimately decided that chips were the best option. During this process made minor adjustments to dark mode colors and said goodbye display names (and emojis)

✨Phase 2✨

We decided to take a bolder approach and experiment with merging the reaction counts into the reactions bar.

We internally tested both dynamic and fixed spacing for a few days, ultimately decided to move forward with fixed spacing. 

The TL;DR of this test: muscle memory prevailed

✨Phase 3✨

We aimed to explore reducing gutters, adjusting spacing, and modifying kerning. However, this turned out to be a high-effort task for both design and engineering, as the changes had a significant impact on the app. Many of these changes were reverted, and we shifted our focus to finalizing the overall design.

As a result, we removed the bookmark feature and adjusted the spacing on the reactions bar.

s/o @deodad for the patience and collaboration while working on channels in parallel & the entire merkle team for constant feedback

my phase 1 image didn't upload 🥲 so here it is

please more content like this. I'm absolutely ecstatic about it. We lived through some hideous UX decisions and i'm so excited seeing the app changing for the best

amazing work on this and thanks for sharing the thought process 🙇

this is really cool! thanks for sharing the process

love the announcement via meme

very effective

great work!

why add a name though only when you view the post in full and hidden everywhere else?

what was the thought process in getting rid of display names and putting usernames there? 

i'd imagine: 

- another status game, that particularly rewards early users of FC
- gets rid of the impersonation/parody account problem somewhat
- shorter and cleaner in most cases