Pride is a celebration for the LGBTQIA+ community to celebrate self and social acceptance, equal rights, and diversity. During Pride month, people around the world celebrate in various rainbow-colored ways and events. Pride month is a perfect opportunity for businesses to support the LGBTQIA+ community through genuine efforts.
While many companies get called out for performative activism and rainbow washing, there are better ways for businesses to show support for the LGBTQIA+ community. One way to support the LGBTQIA+ community is to build support for Pride into your app for everyday usage.
Mobile apps during Pride month
Take Microsoft as an example of a business that incorporates Pride into its apps. This year for Pride month, Microsoft created the ability for users to update their color themes to ones inspired by LGBTQIA+ flags. It’s built the message of Pride into app functionality and intends to keep that functionality available year-long.
Microsoft also celebrates Pride by amplifying the voices of LGBTQIA+ community members and allies. They share peoples’ stories of intersectionality from around the world, citing the quotes and stories of those affected.
Uber also incorporated messages of Pride into their app for Pride month. Uber is a ride-sharing platform that celebrates Pride in its app by changing the color of the car icon and adding rainbow route markers. This functionality is available in select regions for Pride month and is not available year-round.
Uber also has extensive documentation and LGBTQIA+ resources on its website. Their resources include definitions of different sexual orientations and gender identities to spread awareness, tips for allies, and their clear support for transgender rights. Uber is also transparent about the LGBTQIA+ activities they host and support, including advocating against the societal stigmas faced by the transgender community in India.
Strava is another app that incorporates Pride into its app. Strava helps athletes track their physical activities and rewards users with digital badges upon completion of certain milestones. For Pride month, if a Strava user logs 10 hours of activity or more within the month, they receive the shareable Pride badge. Users can also update their GPS activity lines to a rainbow theme. The Pride route theme is available to users all year long.
Be proud of your mobile users
When businesses celebrate Pride, they need to do it in a respectful way that uplifts and supports the LGBTQIA+ community. Simply “rainbowifying” your app for the month is no longer good enough.
In a survey about how brands should support Pride month, 45% said by educating “people on LGBTQIA+ issues and misconceptions”, and 39% said by showing “a more accurate and positive representation of LGBTQIA+ people”.
Here’s how apps can amplify queer voices and support the LGBTQIA+ community:
- Building functionality into your app for year-round usage that improves app inclusivity, such as the ability to select from several gender identities, non-binary avatars, etc.
- Surveying your LGBTQIA+ employees and customers about what they’d like to see
- Supporting designs created by LGBTQIA+ creators
- Donating time/money to local LGBTQIA+ organizations
The best way to show support for the LGBTQIA+ community is to be genuine in your approach and to put appropriate resources behind your messaging. For next week’s blog post, titled “How tech companies should show up and show out for LGBTQIA+ efforts, 365 days a year”, we will dive into this kind of performative activism.
How to customize your mobile app for Pride
Ready to add some color to your application? Building on Bitrise helps ensure everything is ready before deployment with UI testing, snapshot testing, and more. Connecting your GitHub repository to Bitrise helps automate and streamline your CI/CD workflows to release better apps, faster.
With Bitrise, you can get your build up and running quickly with pre-made Steps and open-source Workflows. These Steps and Workflows automate mobile app testing, including UI testing, instrumentation testing, security testing, regression testing, and more.
Use the following Bitrise Steps to test your UI before deployment:
- Fastlane: you can run your fastlane lane on Bitrise with the same commands you would use locally. Bitrise’s automated Steps provide extra functionality to your lane and speed up your builds.
- Appium: you can use the Appium UI test in your Bitrise workflow to catch defects in native, hybrid, and web apps.
- Android Instrumented Test: you can use this Step to run instrumented tests on an existing APK.
- Bluepill Build/Test for iOS: you can use this Step to build and run parallel UI/Unit tests for iOS using LinkedIn's Bluepill testing tool
When releasing a version of your app for the LGBTQIA+ community, make sure your app has no bugs. Especially ones that might make your efforts seem less genuine. Using these Steps for your mobile apps can help you catch UI issues before deployment.
Happy building! 🏳️🌈
For more resources and information about how to support LGBTQIA+ rights and activism, see here:
- Europe & UK — Outvertising: https://www.outvertising.org/employer-guidance
- Americas — The Trevor Project: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/
- Asia Pacific — Asian Pride Project: http://asianprideproject.org/
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