Reimagining WhatsApp ! - UI Design Thinking
Suggesting a few significant design tweaks to the most popular Social and Communication application.
Product-first engineer, blogger and open-source contributor with around 4 years of experience in software development, cloud-native architecture and distributed systems.
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Feature #1 - Inbox for WhatsApp Groups 📩
A personalised distinct messages box for WhatsApp Groups which collects all the messages in which you are **Mentioned (@Ashwin) **, along with the messages you have added as Favorites.
This feature will allow group members to quickly view conversations in which they are mentioned or messages that they have marked as favourites.
Feature #2 - Pinned Messages in WhatsApp Chats 📌
Let's say we're in a group of more than 5 people; when you return to that group after a while, there will be at least 25+ messages on the chat - which may lead you to miss the most important message of the conversation - that needs your immediate attention. To eliminate this issue, **'Pinned Messages' ** feature is introduced.
We can quickly notice a message pinned to the top of the conversation by long-pressing it and pinning it to the chat.
Feature #3 - Tweaking Deleted Messages 🚫
If the sender selects a many messages and then selects 'Delete for Everyone,' all of the messages sent by the sender will be deleted, and then, 'This message has been deleted' text will be shown instead all of the messages that was deleted. As a result, the Chat UI appears clunky and uncomfortable.
To fix this, we're modifying the functionality to just show 'the number of messages deleted,' rather than showing each and every message that has been deleted.
Now, the Chat Conversation Screen looks more unified and minimal.
Feature #4 - Introducing WhatsApp Folders 📂
On average, a WhatsApp user communicates with at least 5 people each day. However, in an emergency, when the user wants to connect with a specific group of individuals in their individual conversations, finding their chats in the chat list might be challenging. To help with this problem, We are introducing WhatsApp Folders.
When you swipe to the right on a chat, you'll have an option to 'Add to'*, which will take you to a list of folders where you may categorise this chat.*
Now, if the above selected chat is added to 'Family' folder, this chat can now be accessed easily along with it's mutual chats like Mom, Dad and Other contacts of my family.
The classified chats can all be seen in one location in the image above. This type of categorization, as well as the optimization of access to certain conversations, will greatly enhance the user experience.
Feature #5 - WhatsApp Stories !!! 😍
Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp, as we all know. With an API, if our WhatsApp contact has the same mobile number for their Facebook and Instagram accounts, we can view their Facebook and Instagram stories from WhatsApp using our 'Stories' feature.
We've introduced the ability to mark your favourite contacts as 'Favorites'*, which will appear at the top of the Stories section, allowing you to quicky view their stories.*
We have tweaked and improved the way how we create and post Stories in WhatsApp.
You can now use Filters and Lens in WhatsApp, just like you do in Instagram and Facebook. We have also optimized the creation of Text Stories*, you can now easily select the text and background color with a click, instead of using the existing slider UI which is really bad.*
We're adding a few new features, such as Mute All*, which mutes all stories from a user's contacts, giving them greater control over what you see.*
So, that's it !
These are the features we really like to see in WhatsApp, we'll be really happy if we WhatsApp incorporates these key tweaks.
See you all soon, with our next article. ❤🤟🏽
