It was -16 degrees C in Toronto this weekend, so naturally I spent my days ignoring the weather and doing what I enjoy – tinkering with our product. I love testing out new product features to see how I can not only delight customers, but also give them what they never knew they wanted.

In a way, we’re lucky. Uberflip is a product that's built for marketers. So having our own in-house marketing team also means we have a built-in beta group to test and validate new features, products and other outlandish ideas that may seem crazy, but are probably worth testing.

Bear in mind that this also works both ways. When our marketing team encounters an issue that is slowing them down they have the luxury of coming straight to the source (namely me – which sometimes results in a new feature that we didn’t anticipate).

So, to take it a step further, we’ve decided to open up these experimental features through our new Hubs Lab.

In the Hubs Lab, you’ll be able to test drive new features that aren’t quite ready for primetime but are likely already being used by our marketing team in our own Hub.

Here’s a rundown of the features we’ve got there now.

Sticky Footer

On larger screens, you now have the option of making the footer of your Hub always display at the bottom of the screen. This is a great spot for linking back to your website or to other Hubs. To customize the links and text on your footer, just head over to the Brand & Style section when you’re managing your Hub.

Next Item Flyout

If you’re on a desktop with a larger screen, you’ll see an example of this feature at the bottom right of this post. This sticky flyout prompts readers to view the next article, helping you increase engagement and pages per visit.

Permanent (and shorter!) Hero Section

One of the comments we often get from our customers is how much they love the hero section of their Hub (that initial splash screen you get when first visiting the Hub) and how well it helps them reflect their brand. So, we’ve given you the ability to make the hero section a permanent part of your Hub’s homepage. It’s also shorter, so that visitors see your beautiful content below rather than taking up the whole screen.

Highlight First Item

While you’re currently able to feature images, making them sticky on your homepage, we wanted to take that a step further. On larger screens, when your first piece of content has an image, it will become an Uber-Tile, enlarging to the size of 4 tiles. Note that in order for this to take effect, there must be at least 5 or more Items in that particular content Stream.

To access Hubs Lab, simply login and go to the Add-Ons & Widgets section. Click on the Hubs Lab and choose which features you want to enable.

We would also love to hear what you think about these experimental features or about any other ideas you have that will make your Hub awesome! Email us, give us a call at 1-888-694-2946 or use the feedback section of the application.

About the Author

Yoav is the founder and CEO at Uberflip and is responsible for driving the mission, vision, and goals of the company. He spends considerable time working with his team to continuously delight and surprise Uberflip's customers.

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