Today we are starting a contest for UI designers. The task is to create UI visualizations of voice calls on Telegram. The minimum prize budget of $10,000 will be distributed among the authors of best works.

We expect UI animations showing how a user starts, accepts and ends voice calls on either Android or iOS. You may also include static images you deem necessary. All videos/pngs should be sent to @design_bot before 11:59PM CET June 22, 2019. We expect pixel-perfect graphics and “wow-effects” in animations. You may also want to show the 4-emoji verification process in your mockup.

Good luck!

The bonus stage for the iOS, Android and JS developers who won the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes in the final stages of our Chart Coding Contest is starting today.

Prizes: $100,000 to be distributed among the 32 eligible developers on 3 platforms.

Dates: June 15, 2019 - June 23, 2019 (11:59PM CET).

Task: Identify imperfections in one of the Telegram apps – glitches, bugs, sloppy animations, instances of slow speed – anything that after having been fixed or optimized would result in meaningful and noticeable improvement from a user’s perspective. Download the source code of Telegram and fix the imperfections you identified. Compile your own version of Telegram and upload it to @jobs_bot (as APK /IPA/ZIP), together with a link to your fork’s pull request on GitHub and a description of improvements implemented.

The more imperfections / glitches / bugs you identify and fix, the higher the reward (provided we like the code).

This is one of the most generous developers’ contests we’ve held so far with at least $100,000 to be distributed among a maximum of 32 developers. This way we’d like to further reward those who showed great results in our previous contests.

The task, however, is not for everybody: you will have to make sense of a largely undocumented piece of code, proactively search for issues (potentially getting feedback from users/designers/testers) and find creative ways to fix imperfections without causing negative side effects to Telegram’s performance or usability. We do not recommend implementing new features requested by users (such as client-side folders / invisible mode etc); we would rather advise the participants to focus on eliminating imperfections in the existing features, and improving the app’s ease of use or visual appeal. Of course, this may also involve user experience on iPads/tablets.

Compilation guide for iOS: https://github.com/peter-iakovlev/Telegram-iOS/blob/master/README.md

Compilation guide for Android: https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/blob/master/README.md

Compilation guide for JS: https://github.com/evgeny-nadymov/telegram-react/blob/master/README.md (unlike the iOS and Android apps above, the react JS app is not an stable production version of Telegram, so JS developers will have an easier time identifying bugs and imperfections to fix).

@jobs_bot will start accepting the apps (APKs/IPAs) and corresponding GitHub links on June, 20.

To help you get a better idea of the goals, tomorrow we’ll publish a small list of glitches/bugs/imperfections that can serve as good examples of issues we expect the developers to focus on.

We hope this new bonus contest will help developers perfect their already incredible skills and learn new approaches. Good luck!

Suggested by @inforest, "This is a slight improvement, but I believe that it would make Telegram more convenient."

To help the participants of the June Coding Contest better understand what kind of imperfections we expect them to identify and fix, we've uploaded a sample list of bugs and glitches we found in the Telegram apps.

https://contest.dev/telegrambugs

While it wouldn't hurt to fix these specific bugs, the main goal is to find similar imperfections in the apps and eliminate them.

Speed / performance / fps optimizations are also welcome and will be accepted as valuable contributions in this contest. Have fun!

Suggested by @VladyslavPavlenko

Suggested by @avonakina, "How 3 design students took on a challenge of improving Telegram — https://medium.com/@prodlenkatelegram/design-case-study-how-to-increase-the-use-of-telegram-2b324be3875b"

We keep receiving a lot of great works in the UI design contest. However, some of the submissions ignore one or more of these three recommendations:

1. UI mockups that are night theme only are not sufficient for the contest. We understand that dark designs look cooler on demos. But the default theme on Telegram, as well as in both mobile operating systems, is bright. Make sure you upload a day mode layout together the night mode one.

2. UI mockups can be original when it comes to transitions and choice of colors, but departing too far from the default layouts and icons of the operating system can result in less intuitive UIs. A UI is intuitive when it reuses most of the language (icons, colors, layouts) that is already familiar to the user from the default apps (like the UI of standard calls).

3. UI mockups should fit naturally into the existing Telegram app design. If the rest of the Telegram app is utilizing icons, behaviors or fonts that are noticeably different from those used in your mockup, it may result in a visible lack of consistency. If you’d rather redesign the rest of the Telegram app in accordance with your calls UI mockup, you can do that, but in this case we’ll expect the mockups of all the other relevant screens of Telegram from you.

Those recommendations may seem obvious to most professional designers who daily deal with UI integrity and intuitivity. However, many talented but less experienced designers may benefit from adhering to these principles. The art of the UI design is finding balance between the already known and the new, between the standard and the original.

Participants of the bonus stage are now welcome to start submitting their apps. Please follow the steps below:

1. Start @jobs_bot and choose Telegram Fixes Contest.
2. Upload your APK for Android, IPA for iOS, or a link to your Github Telegram fork for React JS. Don’t forget to deploy your JS app to GitHub Pages as described here.
3. Once you’re done uploading, a dedicated page on the contest platform will be assigned to your app. Until the deadline, only you will be able to view this page.
4. Make sure you’re logged in on the contest platform and open your app’s page using the link provided by @jobs_bot.
5. Create an issue for each of the fixes you implemented in the Telegram app. Describe the fix in the comment for the issue and attach videos/images showing the app before and after the fix. If the fix is available as a separate pull request on GitHub, please add a link to it in the description of the fix.

You may reupload your app using @jobs_bots or edit the descriptions of your fixes on the contest platform until the deadline on June 23, 2019 (11:59PM CET).

For iOS, please follow this instruction to obtain the .IPA:

1. Sync with the Telegram repository on Github.
2. Install fastlane if you haven't already:

brew cask install fastlane

3. In your project folder run

export PATH="$HOME/.fastlane/bin:$PATH"
sh buildbox/guest-build-telegram.sh verify-local

4. Once the build is ready (should take 20-30 minutes), the current folder will contain the file Telegram-iOS-AppStoreLLC.ipa

Another take on folders / tags / categories of chats:

We will stop accepting submissions for the coding contest in about 12 hours from now. We enabled the participants to edit the descriptions of the issues they created until the deadline.