Vero: True Social — UX Case Study
Vero is a little known social media app that was launched in 2015 as an alternative to Facebook and Instagram. It really gained traction in 2018 when Facebook was in the midst of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. However, very few people have heard of Vero even after that, and those that have most likely have some complaints.
I worked on a team of three designers to evaluate Vero and determine what features could be improved upon in order to make the app more popular and easier for users to engage with. We discovered four major ways in which the app could be improved:
- The addition of a “Work” social loop.
- The ability to video chat with connections.
- The elimination of the “Collections” feature, and the addition of a filtering feature.
- The addition of a custom content filter.
The “Work” Social Loop
Through research, we discovered that most social media users don’t like having multiple social media apps on their phone. On average, users have between one and three apps. With that in mind, we wanted to design a better way for users to include work connections in their social circles on Vero.
The way you connect with people on Vero is this: when you request to connect with another user, you have to choose to categorize them as a close friend, a friend, or an acquaintance. These are what Vero calls “loops”.
Then, when you make a post, you choose which loops you want to see the post. But what if you were connected with work colleagues? On Vero’s current platform, you would have to classify them in one of the three loops. However, things you would be ok with close friends, friends, or acquaintances seeing you may not be comfortable with coworkers seeing.
We thought that adding a “Work” social loop could solve this problem. Then, you would have the ability to group all professional connections in one group and still have the freedom to limit what content of yours they say. This way, you are able to keep all your social connections within one app.
The Ability to Video Chat
One of the aspects of social media that a lot of people don’t like is the lack of authenticity, and the way social media contributes to the degradation of real life connections. Users want to be able to talk face to face again. It solidifies trust and makes users feel like they are making real friends.
The best way we found to help bring more authenticity and genuine connection to Vero is by the addition of a video chat function. Vero already has private messaging between connections, so a video chat seems like a logical next step. We decided to add this feature on the main profile page you see when you are looking at a connection, and we plan on adding it into the direct message screen as well.
The Elimination of the “Collections” Feature
Vero currently has an icon in the top navigation that looks like a little stack of papers, and is their “Collections” icon. When you go to the collections tab, you get a menu where you can choose to see photos, links, places, music, movies, or books. Once you choose one, you get a bizarre, chronological assortment of cards with posts that you would normally see full size on your home feed.
It’s important to note here, when you make a post on Vero, the first step in the flow is choosing what category of content you will be posting; photos/videos, links, places, music, movies/tv, or books.
From an app that is complimented on its User Interface, this seemed like a very strange design decision. We decided to scrap the “Collections” feature all together, and instead implement a more traditional filter option. We added a pull down menu just below the top nav where you can toggle on or off the content you would like to see, and the results are instantly shown in your feed below. This kept the functionality of “Collections” but integrated it more fluidly into the existing UI.
The Addition of the Custom Content Filter
Social media and politics have a tumultuous relationship to say the least. The vast majority of people that we interviewed for this project commented that they don’t like seeing political content on their social media. In a more general sense, nobody wanted to see negative content on their feeds.
Jakob Nielson teaches us that user control and freedom is one of the ten heuristics for user interface design. However, we can’t infringe on user’s freedom of speech. So how do we let users post whatever they want, but not see what they don’t want to?
The solution we came up with is the custom content filter. Deep within Vero’s settings, there is a section called “Content”. Currently, the only items under that subheading are “Hidden Posts” and “Blocked Users”. What we decided to add here was the option to type in a word/words that you never want to see. After you hit the plus sign, any posts containing that word in its headline or caption will be filtered out of your feed. Users can still post what they want, but if you don’t want to see anything about Justin Bieber, you don’t have to.
This may seem unnecessary with the current option to hide posts, but in order to hide a post you have to see it first. You may read or see something offensive or bothersome to you before you can hide the post. But if you have already told the app you don’t want to see anything on a certain topic, it will automatically hide the post for you, saving you the discomfort.
Vero seems to have a solid base in its UI and brand mentality. With some refinement and some additional features, I believe it can be a truly game-changing social media app. While the features we developed won’t solve every problem facing social media, it would be a big step in the right direction.
