The Magazine  

The NomadMania App for iOS and Android is here!
 

It is our 222nd issue - and indeed after a lot of work and effort, we are launching Nomadmania 2.0 in a way! Our apps, available for both iOS and Android, are ready for download on their respective platforms - and of course they are entirely free for all of you. Log in with your username and password and discover this new tool which will hopefully be a great addition to how you travel!

As this is truly a ground-breaking moment for us, and we don't want to take away from the impression of our UN Masters interviews, this will be one of our rare issues without an interview at the end; though we do have a short discussion with our always enthusiastic manager Milana who talks about her experience with the app.

We cannot find enough words of thanks for Milana, who managed the project and the communication with the app developers, as well as our IT guru Daniel, for their instrumental roles in the development and launch of our apps.

NomadMania - Endless Exploring app
 
iOS download link: 
https://apps.apple.com/pl/app/nomadmania-endless-exploring/id1559758209

Android download link: 
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nomadmania.presentation

App functionalities
 
The app was conceived as a utility tool for NomadMania members to enable your easier input of your travel log data, especially while on a trip.
 
The App screen is split into three main parts (tabs) and can be easily browsed by tapping at the bottom of your screen.
 
Here is a brief explanation of all three of them - note that we will be using photos from both versions (iOS and Android) to illustrate the features.
 
1. Map:

The app gives you full access to the global map, split into the 1301 NomadMania regions. Travellers can navigate the map freely by sliding/zooming/tapping, use the search tool, or the "locate me" button. With the ability to explore the regions and series items within the regions, you can mark regions and series as visited, directly on the map. Also, you can access full regional data by tapping the region and then the card that appears on the bottom of the screen, where you can edit visit info and see region details such as assigned series and photos. To add photos, tap on the Edit button, to edit your visit details on a region. 
 
Visited regions are visible on the map, but only up to certain zoom levels. Once you zoom in past a certain point, the map will lose its characteristic orange colouring, so you can see the specific region map more clearly.
 

2. Travels

This screen enables you to view 4 main tabs:
 2.1 Regions - list of regions grouped by megaregions
 2.2 Places - Many Quirky Places (M@P List)
 2.3 Series - all Series categories, including World Heritage Sites, split into groups on top of the screen (you can slide left-right this menu) and
 2.4 Trips - my trips feature, with the same functionalities as on the website.
 
All of these features should be pretty much straight forward to use with the functionalities very similar or entirely the same as on the website.

As you can see in the visual below, all Series have been retained so that you can easily see where to go and what to see while you are on a trip. This includes World Heritage Sites, and also our popular M@P List, which features 771 quirky places! (well, as of Friday the 7th May!)

And don't forget the Trips feature - rather than filling in through Regions, Trips allows you to input specific dates and all the regions visited on a single trip, making it much more personalised to YOU and YOUR travels compared to regions. 

Obviously filling in new data on the app will result in an immediate change of your profile also visible on the website version.

3. Profile

You can see/edit your own profile data as well as the lists of your scores and series. The "Series badges" part of the profile is horizontally scrollable.

Editing profile data
 
On iOS, you will see the "Settings" button on the top right corner of your "Profile" tab. Here you can edit your profile or access other hot links and logout.

On Android, this menu unfolds if you slide your finger from left to right in the Map view.

What is not in the app?

The big difference with the desktop version is that the app does not contain other travellers' data. Every traveller is able to see only their own scores and only their own maps, travel info, etc. None of the "competitive" lists are available through the app and they are accessible only on the website (for now).

The app also doesn't contain any of the "Travellers" menu sections or "my earth (KYE)" and also none of the "media" or "useful info" sub-sections. All of these are accessible as always through our desktop version. Our logic is that you will use the app mainly while on the road, and what will probably interest you more is browsing your own profile and updating items to see and do rather than reading older newsletters, for example, which you may do when you have more time on your computer.

I'm experiencing some issues with the app. What should I do and how can I report this?

Your role is essential in smoothing things out - inevitably not everything will work perfectly, but we hope it will be close to perfection. Still, when you discover errors we ask you to do the following:

 1. Make a screenshot and a simple note of the issue you are experiencing. Make sure to add as many details as you can - explain what were you trying to do and/or what were you expecting to see, versus a note about what was your actual experience.
2. Note which device (producer and model) you are using and which OS it is running. (IoS or Android).
3. Send all images and notes to the email address: milana@nomadmania.com

And here is a photo of Milana, so you know who you are sending your email to!

Milana has been the manager of NomadMania for almost 2 years and she managed the whole process of developing the app. So we take this opportunity to ask her a few more questions about it!

Milana, what were your expectations from the app development process when this project was started?

I was thrilled to do this project in the first place! I had no idea what to expect, as this was the first app development project that I was involved in. Of course, my previous experience in managing the development of various e-commerce projects helped, but I knew that the learning curve was going to be steep with this one. A lot of trust went into my hands and that can be a little scary at times.
 
What went beyond my expectations was how much in-depth knowledge about the NomadMania project I still had to obtain, even after working here for longer than one year at the time of this project's start. What often seems like a simple website made just for fun, is actually a complex machinery of various calculations, humongous databases and years worth of gathering worthy travelling experiences that cover the whole globe.

Most of the challenges that we experienced were certainly related to the company that was doing the app development for us. They went through a series of internal issues that had started with our initially assigned project manager resigning from their company. This guy's work was so strong that what he did in a month and a half (or so) of his involvement with our project has certainly influenced the product that you end up seeing the most. I feel that if he had stayed on our project until the end, we would've achieved much more in the time that we spent developing this project. To me, this was a dear reminder of my previous experience in the "corporate" world and how the employees tend to be treated there.

It is worth noting that by the time that this project got its final shape and was released, the company we have worked with dissolved and ended their support to us. Talk about challenges!

Satisfied is a tricky word. :) 

The app that we got is wonderful and so far we have received only praise from our early testers and some people that got involved with the app during our soft launch in late April. The best part is that our travellers now have a proper tool for using the NomadMania website on the go, while travelling. It is considerably easier to enter your travel data as soon as you do something, so you don't forget (e.g. checking off that Museum that you wanted to visit so much). 
 
Also, we make much more use of regional photos, which are a serious treasure for travellers. There is no other place on the web where you can explore the globe so systematically and in detail, that has unique, user uploaded, fully curated images of the places that only serious travellers dare to go to.
 
However, if you ask me if I'm satisfied - maybe this is the perfectionist in me talking, but that is hard to be after the first iteration. We have just started with this project and now we have a new responsibility towards our community. We need to hear their opinions, reviews and experiences and then do what we do best - constantly improve. Only once we know that our travellers are satisfied, can we be satisfied ourselves.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, this depends on our travellers and partners. As most of the people in this community know, we are a unique online tool and project, developed by travellers for travellers, completely free of charge. However, financing projects like this takes time and money, and this is what we have a limited amount of.
 
We will continue developing this project further, depending on our travellers' direct financial support through their donations (https://nomadmania.com/donations.html) and/or our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/nomadmania) page. This is why I would use this opportunity to address those in our community who enjoy using our website, and now the NomadMania app, to visit our donations page. And if you don't find what you need there, you can always send us a message to let us know how we can make it even easier for you to support us.
 
As far as our general plans for further app development go, we would like to develop it in the direction of a unique, travel-planning tool that would make it easy to create itineraries and plan full trips. Besides this, as always, we plan to fix and improve whatever will seem to be not working well enough for our users.

The photos in this issue are from NomadMania's new app versions, both IoS and Android - as well as Milana's personal photos.

Our next issue will be out on May 21 and will feature something special for football fans as well as a presentation of the results of our first scholarship initiative!