I Want it That Way: Building a Social Media App, The Low Code/No Code Way

As a software engineer, sometimes it’s easy to think the low code/no code revolution will not have much impact on your career or the products that you build. On the other hand, there is plenty of apprehension about the future of these tools and whether they will eliminate the need for developers completely. The truth is that low code/no code is another new tool that developers can add to their existing skill set, which can lead to more opportunities.  For most developers, when most of us are given a project or assignment, we reach for our favorite libraries, frameworks, and tools. Imagine a world where all of this has been handled; you don’t have to worry about libraries, tools, or bundling; a world where your focus is solely on the data, the flow of the business logic, and getting your idea into a real user’s hands as quickly as possible.  These are some of the primary motivations behind the widespread adaptation of low-code/no-code tools across industries. Gartner estimates that by 2025, 70% of new applications developed by enterprises will use low code/no code technology. Another estimate states that low-code/no-code will make it mainstream, with 75% of development shops adopting some sort of low-code/no-code tool.

This is how I became introduced to the low-code/no-code ecosystem. Late last year, I was approached by a small start-up trying to get their technical MVP (minimum viable product) working to attract next-level investment. I initially expected to architect a React/React-native based app with a microservice backend, specifically tailored to their unique business needs. When the client initially brought up low code/no code, I was skeptical.

My primary concerns were with robustness and scaling, data ownership, customization, and hosting. Doing initial research, I came across Bubble, Outsystems, and Zapier, among an ecosystem full of many more low code/no code tools. I noticed many of them were geared towards business process automation, form building, and workflow automation. 

These are great features for evaluating the efficacy of a low-code tool, but different from what my client needed for their MVP. After a deep dive into Bubble including tutorials on making a to-do list app and videos explaining different Bubble editor features, we decided that Bubble would be most likely to meet all of our development needs.

What made the case for Bubble was the customization, variety of articles and documentation specific to Bubble, and the many tutorials available demonstrating how to build out replicas of existing social platforms. While the tutorials and documentation mostly focused on setting up data, data flows, and implementing business logic, they didn’t provide strong opinions on the design and implementation of these features within your particular Bubble site. This may seem ideal for some users, but without training on how to utilize Bubble’s many features, this can be a hindrance, especially for non-technical users. The interface for the Bubble site designer consists of far more than a few drag-and-drop buttons and a simple color palette editor. I had to complete several hours of tutorials to learn where things were and how different features within Bubble worked.

After completing those tutorials, I knew that it would take me a significant period to build an entire platform alone. While looking through the tutorials, I came across pre-built templates designed by professional Bubble developers. These templates took care of a lot of the business logic, major features, and functionality while also allowing room for customization. I convinced my client to purchase a template to save on development time and costs. For the particular template we agreed on, the features that most excited me were inbuilt analytics, messaging, and social networking logic already in place. I knew that there was still some logic that would need to be implemented, but having a solid base to work from definitely took a lot of pressure off of my client and myself. Implementing the template also provided a better road map for my client and me. We could now see what features were necessary, which could be repurposed, or completely removed from the template for our specific purposes.

My engineering skillset became most handy when developing the workflows for the application.  Workflows are the primary power in Bubble apps; they are the instructions for handling data and user interactivity within the app. It’s easy to transform a simple user action into a workflow using Bubble’s inbuilt tools, but arranging the flow involves an understanding of responsive web design that most developers gain over their careers. For example, my client wanted to ensure that in addition to the information a user-provided at sign-up, we also collected information on a user’s industry or business. While Bubble already has an inbuilt sign-up flow that can be added to a page or element, this extra information requires an additional form. With a workflow, I’m able to add this custom form to the user sign-up flow, as just an additional step. At first look, this may seem like work a non-technical person can do, but my having those responsive web design fundamentals and years of practice in logically mapping user interactions in code, made this process so much easier and faster. A lot of low-code/no-code tools abstract logic like this in such a way that you don’t have to be technical, but I think this also gives trained developers a leg up when approaching low-code/no-code solutions.

Following the purchase of the template, my client and I entered into a series of weekly development sprints. For each new feature developed, I would demo to my client team, then direct them to a particular section of our development site, and review feedback and notes from the client. We also worked hand in hand to tailor some of the social media aspects of the template toward a more business-user audience, particularly to the industry that my client is a part of. After a few weeks of tweaks, testing, and ultimately upgrading our existing Bubble plan for more workflows, I delivered a functional, testable MVP for my client.

Having just completed our initial implementation, I can confidently say that adding low-code/no-code tools to your skillset as a developer is worth the investment.  From getting MVPs and products out quickly, to abstracting logic so developers and non-developers can focus on user experience, low-code/no-code is here to stay.