Today’s @steemitblog post is brought to you by Steemit’s Applications Team. In this post we will highlight some recent changes we have made to two of our front-end applications: condenser (steemit.com) and the faucet (sign-up system). We will also talk briefly about some of the other changes we have been working on.

The Applications Team

The Applications Team is currently focusing on three areas:

• Front-end products, such as the faucet and condenser
• Backend services, such as Hivemind (Communities) and SBDS
• Development and Operations (DevOps) / systems engineers

Paid Sign-Up Options

We’re doing a lot to improve the sign-up process and mitigate bots on the platform. In addition to that work we now present users with alternative third-party paid sign-up options when they go to create an account. This allows users who aren’t comfortable providing their personal information an easy way to create an account, and provides users who want to get started right away an option to skip the line.

We know it’s wordy, but we wanted to be very clear about why the two options exist and the fact that we are not profiting from the paid sign-up options.

Transfer Confirmation Step

Because token transfers are irreversible, we wanted to help users avoid making erroneous transfers. We've now added a step which displays all the details of the transfer before the user signs the transaction. This additional step should help prevent people from making payment errors. We plan to make the user interface more appealing in the future, but for now it does the job.

Upload Image Buttons

Thanks to a community contribution from GitHub user @voorash, you can now finally change your cover photo or profile images by uploading an image file directly from your hard drive! Simply click “Upload an image” in your Settings page:

Payout Options in Settings

We moved the dropdown for selecting payout options (Decline Payout, 50% SBD / 50% SP, and Power Up 100%) away from the posting interface and into the settings page. This was an “advanced user” option that only created confusion for the majority of users. We also added the ability to select a payout option for comments.

Any users interested in toggling their payout options simply need to select the new setting from their Preferences, and it will immediately take effect for new posts/comments going forward.

New Bandwidth Option

Whenever anyone transacts on the Steem blockchain (posting content, commenting, upvoting, etc.), computational resources are used. “Bandwidth” is the resource that regulates this usage to ensure that we are not making unsustainable demands of the network. During times of heavy usage, or if the user performs too many actions, they can use up all their bandwidth allocation and become unable to transact until their bandwidth recharges. We wanted to give these users an “actionable” that would explain why they are running into the error and help them resolve the issue in order to continue interacting through steemit.com.

Now, when a user is unable to perform a transaction due to a lack of bandwidth, a modal will appear that clearly explains the issue and displays a “Buy Steem Power” option. The Buy Steem Power link takes them to BlockTrades, the only interface through which users can purchase Steem Power directly. This is necessary because a user cannot power up purchased STEEM if they have run out of bandwidth. We are currently researching more ways to improve the user experience relating to bandwidth.

Miscellaneous

Other changes we have been working on include boring (but important) bug fixes, and highly technical changes. Users interested in learning more about these can track our development in the steemit GitHub repositories.

We’ve spent a lot of time strategizing about how to combat bots+spam on the platform, how to continue improving the sign-up process, how to better protect the ecosystem against attacks, and how to improve overall performance. We expect to make a lot of progress on those fronts and look forward to telling you more about our work moving forward.

Thanks for reading.

Steemit Applications Team