Navigation in your App: Structure, Flexibility & Control

Navigation is a crucial aspect of any mobile app, guiding users to the content and features they seek. In tchop, navigation is designed to be both intuitive for users and highly customizable for administrators. This ensures that your app aligns perfectly with your brand's structure and user expectations.

What are mixes?

In tchop, mixes are the foundation of your content structure. Think of a mix as a section, topic, or feed of content, similar to a folder or channel. Each piece of content in your app belongs to a specific mix.

Mixes allow you to:

• Organize content by theme, department, or purpose

• Combine different types of media (articles, videos, links, threads, etc.)

• Control who sees what, using roles and permissions

• Display content in both the News Feed and other areas of the app

You can decide:

• Which mixes are shown in the main navigation

• Which mixes are part of the News Feed

• Which mixes are reserved for special topics or audiences

This modular structure makes it easy to scale, curate, and customize the app experience for different user groups—without complexity. However its important to understand the logic of mixes as it is the foundation to your app's experience, structure and navigation.

Main navigation

The main navigation serves as the primary means for users to explore your app. It typically includes:

• News Feed: The central hub where users find the latest content.

• Lists of sections (or mixes): Curated collections of content on specific topics.

• Pinned mixes: dedicated feeds, that you want users to access with one tab

• Chat: Access to group discussions and direct messages.

• Profile: User account settings and personalization options.

You can customize the order, names or icons of these sections to match your organization's needs. The news feed is usually the first tab. This is where most of the attention and engagement takes place. If you want to read more about the news feed, you can find it here.

In our mobile apps you can have up to 5 navigation options in the tab bar. More content and navigation can be placed in the drawer. But we recommend to focus on the tab bar.

Usually in most cases if you choose to use chats and you go with a news feed on position one, there are two options (on position two and three, from the left), that you can easily customize. You can combine options like mix lists and dedicated feeds in a way that suits your case best.

Customizing navigation: tailor to your brand

Your app's navigation can be tailored to reflect your brand identity and user preferences:

• Icons and labels: Use custom icons and labels for navigation items.

• Color schemes: Align navigation colors with your brand palette.

• Language support: Provide navigation in multiple languages to cater to a diverse audience.

Also it's important to understand that tchop provides a multi channel structure. That means your app can have an unlimited amount of channels, that can each have it's own structure of mixes, overviews and features.

Managing navigation in the backend

Administrators have full control over the navigation structure via the tchop dashboard:

• Add/remove mixes: Modify the main navigation items as needed.

• Reorder Items: Drag and drop to rearrange the order of navigation elements.

• Set permissions: Define which user roles have access to specific sections.

Most changes made in the backend are reflected in the app in real-time, ensuring a dynamic and responsive user experience. Only a few changes require app updates.

Best practices for effective navigation

• Keep it simple: Limit the number of main navigation items to avoid overwhelming users.

• Be consistent: Use familiar icons and labels to reduce the learning curve.

• Prioritize content: Place the most important sections at the beginning of the navigation.

• Test and iterate: Gather user feedback and adjust the navigation structure accordingly.

By thoughtfully designing your app's navigation, you enhance usability, encourage engagement, and ensure that users can effortlessly access the content and features they value most.

If you need assistance planing and discussing your app's navigation or have specific requirements, feel free to reach out!