Thinkific is a leading online course builder that offers all the tools you need to create courses and engage your students. The platform also has a mobile app to encourage in-app learning and increase course engagement, thus boosting completion rates.
But what does the user experience in the Thinkific mobile app look like? What features does it support? How much does it cost?
We’ve created this guide to answer all these questions and show you how your members can use the app.
So, let’s dive in!
What Is Thinkific Mobile?
Thinkific Mobile is the course builder’s mobile app, which allows students to watch courses and participate in communities directly from their phones. The app is available on both iOS and Android devices and was designed with a modern, user-friendly interface to make learning easier and more enjoyable.
The app is different from the web platform in the sense that it was designed from scratch, keeping in mind the mobile experience but also focusing on learners. That focus on learners means it doesn’t have any authoring or admin tools. So, you must use the web platform to create and manage courses.
Additionally, the mobile app doesn’t support certain features, such as Thinkific certificates and assignments, and those missing features will only be available through the web platform.
Still, the app is great for student engagement. It allows access to your content and community on all devices and at all times.
Cost-wise, the app is totally free for students and available to all websites created on the Thinkific platform. However, you must be subscribed to the platform’s Start plan or higher to enable mobile app access for your school.
Apart from the free app, Thinkific creators can also get a white-labeled app for their online schools.
While both apps offer similar functionalities, Thinkific’s Branded Mobile allows you to build a custom app that belongs to you and not Thinkific.
It’s a cost-effective solution compared to building an eLearning app from scratch. What’s more, is that Thinkific also handles all the technical aspects for you. If you’d like to learn more about the custom app option, read more about it on Thinkific’s website.
How Does the Thinkific Mobile App Interface Look?
The Thinkific app takes a minimal approach to delivering online courses to your students.
The home screen is well organized, featuring the most recent courses your students watched on the web platform, so they can easily resume them in the app. If you’ve built a community on Thinkific, the home screen will also display the most recent posts from your community.
The navigation bar is tucked in at the bottom of the screen, from where students can easily browse your courses and communities and see their latest notifications. The course and community sections also have a simple design, and your members can easily access course lessons and community posts.
Overall, Thinkific’s mobile app has a clean, intuitive interface, and it’s very simple to use.
How Does the Thinkific App Work?
As we mentioned above, the Thinkific Android app and its iOS counterpart are designed for students, and it doesn’t have any admin options. So, our focus in this section will be on how the app works for students.
Before students can download the app, you need to enable mobile app access for your Thinkific school. Inside your admin dashboard, go to Settings → Mobile App and toggle on the Mobile App status option.
You can then share the app download link with your students via a QR code or a dynamic link. After downloading the app using the QR code or the direct link, they’ll be taken directly to your school’s page, followed by the login screen where they should enter their login credentials.
Alternatively, your members can go to the Apple App Store to download the Thinkific iOS app and the Google Play Store to download the Android version.
If they download the app from the app stores, they’ll first need to search your school in Thinkific’s directory before accessing the login page. This is one area where the experience could be simplified. Ideally, the members should enter their email addresses and Thinkific should send them links to access all the schools they’re enrolled in.
Once logged in, your members can easily access your courses and communities. They can see all the courses and communities they’re part of by clicking the Learn button at the bottom of the screen.
This will open a new window with a separate tab for courses and communities.
Upon selecting a course, they will be taken to the curriculum page, from where they can easily access a lesson by tapping it.
And since the app is in perfect sync with the web platform, your students can quickly pick up where they left off by clicking the Resume button.
Once inside the course player, they can watch videos and consume other content.
Navigating between lessons is easy, and students have several options:
- They can swipe left and right to go to the previous/next lesson.
- They can click on the Complete button to complete the lesson and go to the next one.
- They can click the hamburger icon at the top to access the curriculum page.
However, the app doesn’t support quizzes and assignments at this point. So, if your course has a quiz, your students can either skip that part of the lesson or view it on the web.
Another downside of the app is that it lacks in-lesson discussions. Still, if you’re using a Thinkific community, this shouldn’t be an issue.
The app also doesn’t support any feature added to your course via Thinkific integration apps.
However, considering the app’s focus on creating a distraction-free learning environment and complementing the web experience, it serves its purpose well.
Now, let’s discuss the community options your members have in the Thinkific mobile app.
From the Learn tab, your members can see the list of all communities they’ve joined. This part of the app is well organized, with each community featuring the posts your students are following and the spaces they include.
Inside a community is a Post button that allows students to easily add a post to a community space of their choice. They can also upload images and files and add a video URL.
The notification tab allows your members to stay informed about what’s going on in your community. However, the app doesn’t allow members to choose the type of notifications they’ll receive.
On the plus side, the Thinkific mobile app supports push notifications. So, as soon as you publish new content, your members will be notified, which is a nice touch from a member engagement perspective.
Now, we’ve come to the admin part, but considering the app is focused on students, there’s not much to cover in this section.
As an administrator, you possess the ability to react and respond to community posts. However, all other aspects of your online school, including Thinkific course creation and student management, are exclusively handled on the web platform.
Conclusion
All in all, the Thinkific mobile app is an excellent way to move the learning experience to mobile screens. It has an intuitive course player and allows students to move between lessons easily. While the app doesn’t support all lesson types at this time, it still provides a decent learning experience.
If you’re still not using Thinkific, you can start a free trial to explore the platform’s features, including the mobile app.
We hope you liked this article. Please let us know if you have any questions about the Thinkific mobile app or about the platform in general.
