It’s a common experience: we’re working at a cafe and wanting to migrate somewhere else, for food, drinks, sunshine–a myriad of reasons. We’d want to look up details for some specific places, but we couldn’t … not on our phones. We created Workfrom to be the best way to find great spots to work and we simply weren’t meeting our own needs. <sad face>
So, we took a break from all the business building we’d been doing and focused on our hedgehog. After all, what good is having all this incredible information if folks can’t easily find it? Over the coming weeks we’ll be rolling out incremental improvements and features focused on the ability for ourselves and our community to effortlessly find the best spots for the work at hand–wherever we may be.
To kick off this hedgehog party, we’re excited to share a small and powerful update to the mobile experience: the ability to search and browse nearby.
The homepage loads quickly on mobile now, with no more imagery competing for bandwidth. Here, you can search and find a match by the name of a place (maybe you want to check the hours, or see if they have power)—or by the name of a city, intersection or full address.
If you don’t mind sharing your location information via your browser, you can also hit the big “Nearby” button to explore what’s nearby. We used to offer this access via the mobile menu, but the experience was lacking. In dense areas like Portland and New York, you’d be presented with a big jumble of dots, and have to zoom in and pan to find yourself to then see what’s nearby. We’ll have some fine-tuning to do as we juggle the competing experience one gets searching and browsing in a rural area vs a more populated one—but I’m stoked at this milestone.
The first thing we typically do when we land at a new place is connect to the WiFi. In the old days (Before Workfrom, or B.W.) I’d connect first before buying food & drink, as I didn’t want to be stuck in a place I couldn’t work from. Old habits die hard. To help make this easier for ourselves and others when on location, we moved the WiFi and password information up top.
I look forward to sharing our next update soon. In the meantime, we’d love your feedback on these improvements and what you’d like to see next. What would save your time and make your work life easier?
Know someone who works from cafes or needs to get out of the home/office? Tell a friend!
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