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OVERVIEW
Promblem
Media Sharing:
Users share the most images on WhatsApp: 6.9 billion per day. But the process of sharing bulk media files is tedious, lacks visual affordances, and users often complain about losing file quality.
Outcome
Users were successful in sending a large number of media files, with reduced time on task by 30%.
Users did not find the notifications solution useful or relevant and the hypothesis was proved incorrect
Notifications overload & missing important messages:
71% of users "quite often" miss important notifications on groups and personal chats
THE CLIENT
PROJECT INFO
Role
Solo UX researcher and designer
Whatsapp is the leading end-to-end encrypted messaging app, with an estimated 2.78 billion users in 2023. More than 100B messages are shared on WhatsApp every day. Users can send text messages, media files, location, make video call, and do a lot more on the app.
Duration
2 weeks
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM SPACE
Talking to the users
I conducted a survey questionnaire with 25 users to understand their daily use of WhatsApp. The questions were crafted around what features they use the most, never use, the issues they face and what they wished could be better in the app.
Sampling the users
Since WhatsApp is widely used by people across age groups, socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds, my survey sample reflected that diversity.
I surveyed 25 users between the age groups of 18 - 55, male and female, living in India and Canada
Deep diving into survey results and user insights
1.
Notification overload is real (pain)
Users in age group of 18-25 received 40-50 WhatsApp message notifications per day.
2.
Media quality drastically drops while sharing via WhatsApp
WhatsApp's default media sharing quality is set to "Auto (recommended)" where user images undergo a compression model that reduces quality and optimizes file size while sending.
3.
Sharing large number of photos and videos is a tedious process
WhatsApp lets users send up to 30 media files at once. Users need to rely on their memory to recognize what media has already been shared. The lack of visual affordances on what's shared and what's not, is particularly challenging while sharing photos and videos that look similar in the preview icon
4.
Missing important notifications
71% of users "quite often" miss important notifications on groups and personal chats
Specific feature-led user feedback
Communities and Broadcast Lists are least used features, across user base
90% of users said they have "never used" Communities and Broadcast List feature
Polls are the least used feature in groups
95%% of users said they have "never used" or "engaged with" Polls in group chat
HEURISTIC EVALUATION OF THE MAIN PAGE
BEFORE
ITERATION #1
User feedback on Iteration#1
✅
'Chats' icon repositioned as the first icon on the tool bar
✅
Broadcast List moved to the 'Create' menu on top right
✅
New Groups button moved to the 'Create' menu on top right
❌
Users found the notification style confusing and not clear/ easy to understand
❌
Users still couldn't differentiate between individual chats and groups
ITERATION #2
User feedback on Iteration#2
❌
Users didn't understand the difference between numbered notifications and plain blue dots
❌
Users still couldn't differentiate between individual chats & groups
FINAL DESIGN
User feedback on final design
✅
Users liked the blue dot icon as notification, without showing the exact number of new messages.
Users found the notification style cleaner and less overwhelming
✅
Users found the notification style cleaner and less overwhelming
✅
Users could differentiate between individual chats and groups with the oblique font style
OPTIMIZING THE FLOW OF SHARING MEDIA FILES
BEFORE
AFTER
User feedback
✅
Users found the number of photos indicator useful
✅
Users said the spacing improved visibility and made the grid look cleaner
AIDING DISCOVERY FOR 'SET MEDIA UPLOAD QUALITY' FEATURE
Task Analysis: Set media upload quality to high
I asked 3 users to find the 'Set media upload quality' setting in the app, and change it from 'Auto' to 'best quality' and observed steps they took to finish the task
🙁
None of the users could find the option to set media quality
🙁
Task completion rate - 0
UX Strategy: Make 'Set media upload quality' setting discoverable
🎯
Aide discovery for the 'set media upload quality' setting by designing a modal that shows up after the user selects media files for sharing
🎯
Give user an option to save their preferred setting and chose 'don't ask me again' option
User feedback
✅
Users agreed that the Set media upload quality modal will help while sharing media
✅
Users found the 'Don't ask me again' option very useful
OPTIMIZING TOUCH AREA TO REDUCE ERRORS BEFORE HITTING 'SEND'
BEFORE
AFTER
User feedback
✅
Users found the preview of photos more legible
✅
Users could easily discover filters
✅
Users liked the new placement of delete button
SENDING MORE THAN 30 MEDIA FILES - IMPROVING VISUAL AFFORDANCE FOR BETTER USABILITY
BEFORE
AFTER
User feedback
✅
Users found the preview of photos more legible
✅
Users could easily discover filters
PROJECT IMPACT
Based on my last round of usability test with 5 users, the changes were useful and solve their two key pain points -
1) Sharing media without affecting the upload quality
2) Reducing the number of steps involved in sharing more than 30 media files
LEARNINGS AND RETROSPECTION
Pivot
My initial hypothesis of giving visual affordance to show users total notifications vs relevant notifications did not work. Users did not understand my first two iterations so I had to pivot.
I retained the original blue icon for showing notifications because that's what is familiar and known to the users.
I had to work with multiple technical constraints for optimizing the media sharing user flow.
While learning about 30 media file limitation, I further researched on the WhatsApp's media compression that led me to increase scope of my project .
Working with constraints
Every usability test is different
With every new usability test, I was learning more about user frustrations and pain points that increased the project scope. It was an interesting learning experience to conduct task analysis on video calls and time the process.
Scope creep is real
As I started working on the user flow based on my survey results, I realized that the scope of this project will not be only about media sharing. I had to also figure a way to aide discovery for the media upload quality setting.
Since this was a two-week design sprint that I project managed independently, I decided to not chase/test my hypothesis on reducing user's cognitive overload due to excess notifications