tincann.ing

An experimental communication app built using SvelteKit and Firebase. Unlike most other social media and chat apps whose aim is to amass contacts and push content to everyone, tincann.ing creates a single dedicated channel of communication between two people at a given time.

Once a user signs up for an account, they are given an option to either join an existing conversation or to start a new one. For an existing conversation the app automatically finds a recent conversation started by a compatible user.

If the user chooses to start a new conversation, they are taken to a new channel and wait for someone to join their conversation. This can be a random user who pulls up the conversation on the main page. The user also has the option to invite any number of friends, which sends them an email asking them to confirm their account.

Each confirmation email includes a unique link which contains encrypted metadata with the invited user's email address and whether they were invited to a particular conversation. This metadata is read by the front-end when the confirmation link is opened. This allows the frontend to confirm their email address and present the new user with the correct registration form with their email address already filled out.

Once the new user enters their user name and password, they are either taken to the main page (if signed up directly) or to the conversation from which they were invited.

At any given time any user can only have a single open conversation, however either user can leave the conversation at any time. This closes the conversation and asks both users to rank each other.

These peer rankings are combined with metrics about the conversation itself to derive a custom "Conversation Score" which is used to calculate each user's "Conversing Score". These scores, similar to what you might see on a ride-hailing app, are used to automatically pair similar users when matching them for conversations.

Built for responsive

The design was consciously restricted so that the UI design and user experience could be meticulously perfected. The app is designed to be fully responsive to scale perfectly from the smallest to largest possible screen.

Modern stack for real-time web

The app is built using a modern "Front End dominant" or Jamstack approach relying primarily on a Front End SPA developed using SvelteKit and Firebase API's for real-time data management and user authentication. The app does not have anything like a "traditional" backend and no CRUD API to speak of. Instead, the app is driven directly by the data which is managed using Firebase Cloud Firestore and it's built-in Subscription system for real-time Events.