WhatsApp
Reimagined

Enhancing communication and collaboration on the platform, and allowing users to better manage their work and personal conversations

WhatsApp Reimagined

Investigating how users communicate in the work and personal landscape, identifying expansion opportunities and integrating new features into WhatsApp to enhance communication on the platform

Overview

Covid-19 has shifted the way we manage our work and personal lives. This two week sprint was centered around the challenge of investigating this landscape to find expansion opportunities for the ever-popular communication app WhatsApp, and to create solutions that enhance the way people interact both professionally and personally on the app.

Duration

2 Week Sprint

Project Type

Group project,
General Assembly, Toronto

My Role

User Research, Wireframes,
Prototypes, Visual Design

Tools Used

Figma
Whimsical
Adobe Creative Suite
Hand Sketching

Explore the prototypes

Or skip to a deep-dive into the design process

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM

WhatsApp is used for both work and personal conversations

Our survey of 41 respondents revealed that:

Research Methods

Surveys, User Interviews
Affinity Mapping
Competitive Analysis
User Personas
User Journey Mapping

Disorganised chats and collaboration issues

In-depth user interviews with 8 participants revealed two buckets of user pain points that we investigated:

Organisation Issues
No way to distinguish between work and personal interactions

Collaboration Issues
Complexity in managing group chat interactions

Organization Issues

Users had trouble keeping their personal chats from popping up during work situations and vice versa, and this lack of control frustrated them.

They also had a hard time segregating between their many group and personal chats in the main listing page. Further more, within group chats they often sent the wrong text to the wrong group as they looked similar.

Collaboration Issues

WhatsApp has recently launched ‘Rooms’, that allows video calls for larger groups, in collaboration with Facebook Messenger. While users liked the feature, they did not appreciate that a Room meeting abruptly transported them to the FB Messenger platform without adequate communication, thus disrupting their flow within the WhatsApp platform.

Secondly, users find a lack of options to seek consensus and formalize events within a group.

Based on all our interviews, affinity mapping and surveys, we created our user personas to better highlight our users pain points.

On-the-go executive Natalie keeps mixing up her chats…

Busy dad Allen is annoyed when he’s taken into FB messenger, upon trying to make a group video call in Whatsapp…

How might we help users like Natalie and Allen better manage their work and personal conversations on WhatsApp, so that they can successfully collaborate and plan out projects and events with their various groups?

Ideating and High Level Solutioning

With a clear understanding of our users and their problem areas, we were able to start creating quick solutioning ideas and sketches. We tested these early prototypes on users to see which ideas resonated with them, and which were to be weeded out.

Ideation Methods

Design Studio
Quick Sketches
Lo-Fidelity Wireframes
User Testing

Exploring how to separate the work and personal streams

Iterating with different options for users to navigate between the two streams of Work and Personal

Experimenting with different landing page options - one with a more Netflix style feel, and the other closer to the current WhatsApp style but with sectioning of chats.

Exploring different ways to help distinguish between chats, such as colour and shapes

Iterating with features like Polls and Invites to help groups collaborate better

An important learning we had along the way was distinguishing between which user problems came under the UX umbrella, and which fell out of its scope by changing the actual business model of WhatsApp. As a result of this some of our initial ideas didn’t make it to our final feature set, as our aim was to work within the premises of the app.

High Fidelity Wireframing & Prototyping

As our feature set started to come together, we were able to visualize more clearly how this might look in higher fidelity. We tried to stay true to the WhatsApp DNA and to that end, we studied their brand and style guides. I was tasked with the creation of these wireframes and the final prototype.

Deliverables

High-Fidelity Wireframes
Figma Prototype

Key New Features

Keeping in mind our users key problem areas, we then created a set of new features that could be integrated within the existing WhatsApp platform. These features would empower users with more control to manage their interactions in a meaningful way, would help them distinguish between their work and personal conversations, and would help them collaborate more effectively within a group

Segregating Work vs Personal Chats

Segregation of all chats into two streams: Work and Personal. Users now have the ability to easily toggle between the two to the desired tab.

They can also mute or unmute all notifications for each stream, with the touch of just one button. No more annoying pop-up messages from either stream to create unwanted distractions

IMPACT:
User testing revealed all our users were able to successfully toggle between the two streams, and navigate the mute/unmute options.

Distinction Between Chats

Group vs Individual Chats
Chats are now separated into group and individual, making it easy to sift between conversations.

A simple Collapse / Uncollapse button allows users to view only the chats they need.

Coloured Group Chats
Colours are now assigned to each group chat, which helps create recognition and familiarity over time, resulting in fewer texts being sent to wrong groups.

Create Polls

To help groups reach a consensus on topics quickly, the polls feature makes decision-making easy, saying goodbye to long-winded conversations with no end goal.

IMPACT:
User testing revealed all users were able complete the task of creating a poll, and they felt it would be a feature they would use often.

Send Event Invites

Users now have the ability to create invitation links for friends, family and even coworkers to WhatsApp Rooms video calls or in-person meetings.

These events can then be directly added into their personal calendars to ensure they never miss an appointment.

For WhatsApp Rooms, special care was taken to address the issue of users not liking being abruptly transported to Facebook Messenger. Carefully constructed messaging informing them of what was happening helped make users feel more in control.

IMPACT:
User testing revealed 60% of users would now be more inclined to use the ‘Rooms’ feature even though it would take them into Facebook messenger, as the revised communication is friendly and informative .

Next Steps

If I had more time, and were to take the project forward, these are some of the things I would consider looking at.

Increased accessibility

I would like to further investigate the colour accessibility of the group chats function and adapt the design to ensure inclusiveness.

Wider user testing

I would test the proposed solutions with a wider audience, especially with regard to some features like the Mute/Unmute icons to investigate how intuitive it is.