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CHANI and Motivation are cross-platform apps that educate and inspire their users with astrological information and motivational quotes respectively. Recognizing the significance of user connection and community building, both CHANI and Motivation seized the opportunity to build apps on Discord. By porting their apps onto Discord, these apps encourage connection, reach a broader audience, and establish thriving communities of their own.
"Astrology is an incredible tool for connection and community building, which is a big reason we were excited to build a CHANI app within Discord." —CHANI
CHANI is a queer, feminist-led team on a mission to support everyone in living their purpose. They believe astrology can be a tool for healing and self-awareness, and hope that it can ultimately help transform our world for the better. CHANI’s mobile app for iOS and Android is one of the top apps for manifestation, self-discovery, and mindfulness.
CHANI’s Discord app allows users to pull birth chart placements, “big three” placements (the Sun, Moon, and rising signs), and track the planetary movements through the current sky. Comparing birth charts and big three placements in Discord is a great way to find similarities between friends, deepen connections, and learn more about the people you talk to, game with, or hangout with every day. Through their app on Discord, CHANI hopes to provide users with a way to strengthen communities and relationships.
"A strong and engaged community will help us to better understand our users' needs and preferences, allowing us to create more impactful and relevant products and features." — Motivation
Motivation is an app from the team at MonkeyTaps that provides daily quotes to motivate users to live their best, brightest life. By using Discord’s versatile developer platform, they were able to effortlessly reach a wider audience and foster the growth of their community.
Discord's social experience sets it apart from other platforms the app is already on. While other platforms offer some degree of social interaction, they are primarily focused on content consumption and distribution — to simply read something quickly, and move on.
In contrast, Discord is specifically designed for building communities. This makes it the ideal platform for branded apps and their developers who are looking to grow user engagement. By bringing their apps onto Discord, they reached a wider audience and foster the growth of their communities in ways that expand across servers.
"Because our mobile app is primarily focused on personal use we had to consider what features would be the most useful in social settings and to help create a fun, engaging product." — CHANI
CHANI is designed to help users explore astrological insights and has numerous features that could have been potentially integrated into their Discord app. However, their dev team decided to implement the most social features. These include the ability to compare birth charts, the big three placements, and check the current sky and how it might affect you through horoscopes. By doing so, the developers could ensure that the app users would have an immersive and meaningful experience while keeping things easy to understand for those who aren’t directly engaging with CHANI but still happen to see the app being used in chat.
Similarly, Motivation has incorporated features such as daily reminders and a feed of quotes for their Discord app. In addition, the MonkeyTaps team also created a unique feature specifically for their Discord implementation which lets community members send motivational quotes to their friends via Direct Message. This feature expands the app's functionality, adding a unique feeling of interactivity for users that feels native to Discord.
"Building on Discord has been incredibly easy, we had an amazing contract developer and a wonderful brand team that helped us every step of the way." — CHANI
The process of building on Discord was made easy thanks to the Discord Developer Portal, which offers clear and user-friendly documentation for developers of any experience level. In addition, the development teams behind CHANI and Motivation had access to a variety of tools and examples that were tailor-made for commonly-used programming languages such as Python.
This not only made the development process fast and efficient but also saved a lot of time and effort. By leveraging Discord's APIs and development tools, the CHANI and Motivation teams seamlessly integrated their apps onto Discord.
As a bonus, the integration of these apps into Discord helps provide the community with unique and exciting features that anyone can add to their Discord server at any time.
"In building our app, we utilized several Discord features, including different types of inputs, optional and mandatory input fields, the UI contextual user menu, emojis, embeds and ephemeral messages." — Motivation
The CHANI and Motivation Discord apps utilize several Discord-specific features, including custom input fields and types, user commands, emojis, custom formatting, and ephemeral messages (a message that only the person invoking the app can see). These features allowed them to build custom, interactive experiences for their Discord users.
"Our advice for anyone looking to build an app on Discord is to first research and familiarize yourself with the platform's developer tools and APIs. Discord has a very supportive community, and its Development Portal is a great place to start." — Motivation
Thanks to the power of the Discord developer platform, CHANI and Motivation were able to create a unique user experience that leveraged Discord’s unique social and community-building powers. By taking advantage of Discord's APIs and development tools, the CHANI and Motivation teams were able to integrate their apps with Discord seamlessly.
To build a great app on Discord, it’s essential to be receptive to user feedback on your app and incorporate it into your app's functionality. If you look to create your own app on Discord, consider starting up a server where users (or prospective users) can join, talk with the development team and provide feedback directly. .
If you’re interested in learning how to build your own app on Discord and help build belonging, just like CHANI and Motivation? Check out our Getting Started Guide on the Developer Portal!
