Label Customization
This theoretical capstone tackles the challenge of creating a feature that can be integrated seamlessly within an existing product.
Project Context
Background: Conceptual Academic Project
WhatsApp helps more than 2 billion people stay in touch with friends and family, anytime and anywhere. Retaining users and remaining the leading messaging service requires constant assessment and engagement with users to better understand user needs.
A recently top voted idea shared in a product exchange board requested a WhatsApp feature that would allow a user to exit a group temporarily & re-enter automatically at a later point in time. For this capstone I would like to further explore the user need behind this suggestion.
What?
Build a feature that addresses the needs of the users expressed in a product idea exchange.
How?
Through gaining an understanding of the actual user need that is layered beneath the users’ suggestion.
Empathize
What are current user frustrations?
user research | competitive analysis
Product idea exchange
In the product idea exchange, the user suggests being able to temporarily exit a group and then re-enter automatically. The use case given is a situation wherein the user is not on a work shift and would like to avoid notifications while not on shift.
Given the existence of the group mute suggestion - further exploration is needed to understand the user need. The user probably doesn’t want to receive any work chats, groups or individuals alike, while not on shift.
In an attempt to gain some clarity I tried to find a common thread between some other top suggestions. One idea was for the user to personalize notification settings, specifically the blue read check marks, for every contact. The suggestion comes from a frustration stemming from clients reaching out at all hours.
Lastly, this suggestion comes from a flooded user. The user receives so many chats from different users and groups. The user would like to be able to organize contact types so as to be able to search for a chat within a category.
Key Takeaway
The common thread in these product exchange ideas is the need for order and organization.
Before one can address specific customization needs and wants, the actual process of putting contacts into categories, as the last idea suggests, would then open up the opportunity for endless customization possibilities.
Competitive analysis
While Slack fills more of a business market and WhatsApp’s target is mainly social, there is overlap between the products and it may be useful to compare the two communication tools in terms of approach to customization of settings per contact or group.
A contact organization system can be a first step in addressing a wide range of user needs.
In the next stage I will explore the use cases of contact list organization for Whatsapp users.
Define
What is missing?
provisional personas | user persona
Provisional personas
These personas were crafted based on the goals and pains mentioned either implicitly or explicitly in the product exchange forum. They reflect goals and pain points that aren’t covered by existing customization settings for an individual contact or group.
User persona
Josh represents a WhatsApp user. Keeping his goals, needs, and frustrations in mind will help ensure the design is user-centered.
Applying existing customization settings for individuals and groups to the new feature would easily allow Josh to temporarily mute all contacts labeled as clients during dinner.
Ideate
Introducing labels
low fidelity sketches | task flow | user flow
Low fidelity sketches
Task flow and User flow
Point to ponder
How would Josh navigate a scenario in which he would like to mute all his clients and work contacts while still receiving time-sensitive messages from his boss?
Prototype
Seamless integration
high fidelity frames | prototype
High fidelity frames
High fidelity frames were created for the Whatsapp label prototype.
Application of custom settings to an existing label.
Addition of an existing contact to an existing label and application of system overrides to label settings.
Creation of a new label.
Point to ponder
The mute options currently available for individuals and groups are 8 hours, 1 week, 1 year. While the 8 hour options seems to correspond to a night’s sleep, what was the thought process behind the other two options? It would be worthwhile to think of the use cases for each option and to consider whether these options or alternative options may work best for the label feature.
Test
The right solution?
usability testing
Scripted prototype testing
Do users understand the feature concept?
Can users apply customized settings to an existing label?
Can users create a new label?
Can users add a contact to an existing label?
Can users apply override to a label setting for a specific contact?
“I need this in real life”
Test results
Users expressed interest in the concept and could see how it would enhance user experience. Two testers were eager to share new label customization ideas as they completed the tasks.
Users were able to easily complete most tasks save for the system override.
What’s next
This project was completed in a two week design sprint. Two main pain points were highlighted during the initial round of testing.
Problem: Users found the ‘create new label’ button placement unexpected.
Possible solution: Perhaps following the pattern for creating a new group (as opposed to a broadcast list) would be more intuitive to users.
Problem: Users expressed some confusion when asked how they would ensure they received notifications from their boss while avoiding notifications from work colleagues. The idea of a system override was not intuitive.
Possible solution: As a new feature perhaps the use of a dialogue box can help educate the user and aid learnability.
A second design cycle would include these edits to the prototype followed by A/B testing in order to compare the benefits of various solutions.