Hi everyone! This is the IRIAM US Team.

This update is mostly bug fixes and upkeep in the parts of IRIAM you don't usually see while streaming or watching 👀

So for this month's Dev Diary, we'd like to pick out one of those small pieces of behind-the-scenes work, and share what we've been thinking about as we work on it.

Let's get into it!

✅ Strengthening Age Verification at Sign-Up

IRIAM has always asked for your date of birth when you create a new account. Starting with this update, there's one more step: right after entering it, a pop-up will ask you to confirm that your date of birth is true and accurate.

The reason we decided to add this pop-up: to ease the burden of a community having to ask "how old are you?" when welcoming someone new to a stream, and the burden of being asked.

We care a lot about everyone being able to spend their time in a stream without small worries hanging in the back of their mind.

Imagine trying to chat with the person in front of you while thinking, "the chair I'm sitting on might have a splinter somewhere..." It's hard to give them your full attention, right? Conversations flow better when the chair isn't on your mind at all. And if every conversation with someone new to the circle had to start with "careful! that chair might have a splinter," things would feel a little awkward, wouldn't they?

We see age verification in streams the same way.

When someone checks in with a newcomer out of care for that person and for the community, we do appreciate the thought behind it. At the same time, what we'd rather focus our energy on is building an environment where nobody needs to give these things a second thought in the first place.

Welcoming someone new with open arms. Keeping your community's usual conversations going. These are some of the fun parts of streaming, and clearing away the habits and worries that get in their way is an important theme for us in building a better environment for streams.

This pop-up is one step in that direction. Beyond it, we're also making ongoing improvements in other areas, like where our ads appear and how the app is described on the app stores.

Changes like this rarely solve everything overnight. That's exactly why we plan to keep at it, step by step.

Alongside the many small improvements like the one we shared today, all part of building an environment where everyone can enjoy streaming with peace of mind, we're also hard at work preparing things to make your everyday streams even more fun 💪

At OffKai Expo the other day, we once again came home with so much inspiration. (To everyone who joined us in person, and everyone who joined online: thank you so much!) Meeting you all at an even closer distance than usual, talking together, and feeling that energy... we're carrying all of it into our plans for the big updates ahead.

Stay tuned!

Until the next entry,

　— IRIAM US Team