From the outset, we knew that we were going to have to make Connector very compelling and addictive to distinguish it from established chat applications. We decided on an avatar facilitated environment, where users represent themselves with a character they build themselves.
The resulting characters are used by chatters to express some basic emotions, breaking the ice with others through cute animations and customisable accessories, colours and words. These proved to be a big hit with users, who rapidly engaged with the push-button interface to build their avatar and choose a combination of phrases that represented who they were or what mood they were in.
The avatar enables users to engage at different levels, through a simple wink, pre-defined speech bubbles, movable character and finally full syncronous chat with one or up to four others. This helps to introduce newcomers to an existing group gently and allow them to get established in the group space, before jumping into a conversation. It differs to other chatroom experiences where users can feel that they are trespassing on the space of the chatters who were there before them, like barging in on a conversation at a cocktail party. Unlike instant messengers, it allows users to interact with one another on a basic, emotive level before chat, establishing first impressions more akin to the real world where we 'size someone up' before deciding to talk to them.
The Alert A Moderator function serves as a visual reminder to all users that help is only a click away. There are two different types of alert to accomodate the instances where someone wants to cease all communication with the offender, or quietly raise the alarm about a user for whom they have concerns, but wish to keep talking to.
Behind the scenes, an application that deals with the alerts is monitored around the clock and allows the moderator to look up problem conversations and adjudicate according to the company's editorial and moderator guidelines. User moderation history is kept and managed by the system to help staff make fairer decisions.
