masumah zahra
The goal of the course was to investigate and improve one facet of Facebook’s Messenger app. This case study was a practice in pushing myself relentlessly to ask, “why?”
I dissected the app's user experience by conducting user research and empathizing with Messenger's users as much as possible. My brainstorm session consisted of asking myself what motivates users, listing Messenger features, and continuously asking myself, “why?” to narrow down my pain points.
After discovering that the search feature is inefficient when searching for old conversations, I looked into the interface of the search feature to more clearly see the different issues. Realizing how many different facets of searching in Messenger there are, I brainstormed as many ideas as I could for five minutes. After narrowing twenty five features, I conducted SWOT and feasibility/impact analyses.
see my sticky note wall!
Selecting just one feature to solve my people problem was a very daunting task, because they all seem to be smart fixes to create a flawless search feature. I decided to combine the following:
These features, while minimal, all work together to create a more frictionless user experience. I think sometimes these types of small fixes make a bigger difference than splashy new features.
I came across the idea to combine these features while comparing Whatsapp with Messenger. I tried to search a word on both apps and compared the experience, and it's quickly detectable how many more steps a user needs to search for a conversation within Messenger. By not displaying all conversations at a glance, masking conversations, not making the search word easily distinguishable, and dates being absent, it makes it exponentially more tedious for a user to find an old conversation.
If there was an instance where a user forgot the exact spelling of a word, Messenger wouldn't be able to be very helpful, because subtext search isn't possible, which further devalues the experience of using the search feature.
This case study redesign was my very first UX design project. It truly allowed me to explore myself as a designer and think not only for the user, but also for the company. The wheels in my head were excitedly turning by conjuring up solutions that could solve these problems while elevating Messenger's reputation.
I dove deep into the design world and learned how to formulate an in-depth, empathy-driven design process, honing in skills such as conducting user interviews or doing SWOT analyses.
Since completing this project, I’ve noticed that Messenger has implemented certain features that I’ve pointed out in this case study, such as bolding the searched term in the search results, which validated my design process.
I found that you can never learn enough about your product’s users, and often it leaves you with more questions than answers - but the quest for those answers gleans valuable gems of information.
