Ruffin
by Isaac Lyman
Ruffin is a threadbare, rawboned, minimalist social app with only one purpose: to get you out of the house, doing something you enjoy in the real world.
How Does It Work?
From the main page, you enter your name, zip code, and something you'd like to do with one or more new friends (rock climbing, ultimate frisbee, geocaching, weaving, Thai cooking, whatever). Ruffin uses the name of the activity and the first three digits of your zip code to provide you with a unique message board, where you can leave messages for other users, set up a local event, or leave a secure contact card so others can get in touch with you. All message boards are public; Ruffin isn't about exclusivity.
Objectives
- Users should spend the least possible amount of time on the site.
- Reserving and verifying a username should take 30 seconds or less.
- Signing in should be rapid and email-based.
- Finding a message board that meets your needs should be instant.
- Setting up a get-together should be painless and require a very small amount of input from each user.
- Switching between pages, posting messages, and all other interactions should appear to be instant (special thanks to Meteor.JS).
- Ruffin should encourage the formation of extremely low-maintenance communities.
- A single 10-minute visit to a message board should be sufficient to introduce oneself, leave a contact card, and join two or three events.
- Users should feel comfortable speaking to each other on the message boards.
- Advertising should be nearly impossible outside of clearly-defined boundaries.
- Users should not feel that their privacy or security is at risk at any moment.
- Ruffin will not ask for any personal information at all except a zip code (which can be false for all we care).
- The user may optionally provide a name and email address.
- Ruffin will never accept sensitive information from anyone.
- Users should not ever be annoyed by Ruffin.
- Emails will only be sent by specific request of the user.
- There will be no daily or monthly email.
License
MIT