Ironhack Project 3: Add a Feature Case Study
Project Brief
Another week, another brief. This week’s project was to add a feature to an already existing app. I was tasked with adding more reaction features to WhatsApp. To be honest, I wasn’t too sure about this at first because I had very limited knowledge of the app, other than knowing that it was used for messaging others, and I never used it before. However, after doing some research to learn more about the company (they’re owned by FaceBook… how didn’t I know this??) and talking to peers who use it daily, I had a good initial understanding of how it works and ways that it can be improved on.
User Research
To confirm these initial findings, I created a survey for WhatsApp users which proved to be valuable with the information gathered. Fortunately, the responses confirmed my previous understanding, which was that users really want to react to messages using fun emojis in a quick manner.
Some of the key takeaways were:
- 70% of participants use WhatsApp daily.
- 60% of participants want a react feature, 20% were indifferent, and 10% doesn’t want it
- There was an even split for participants using the current text react features in WhatsApp.
- Overall, participants are satisfied with WhatsApp’s texting system, but would like there to be more reaction features.
Competitive Analysis (SWOT)
Following the surveys, I conducted a competitive analysis that went through the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of WhatsApp’s competitors: Messages App, Discord, and Slack. This was insightful because I use the three competitors daily, so for me it was a more introspective process.
While there were a few things that WhatsApp was clearly missing, I realized that a huge threat for them as a company is lagging behind its competitors in features that one would expect a messenger app to have. Reactions aside, one of the features that I love about Discord and Slack is their pin feature. This allows users to essentially pin a messenger and store it for easy access at a later point in time.
User Story and User Flow
To focus on the main feature being added, I created a user story, which is, “As a user, I want to react to text messages, so I can quickly reply to my friends in a fun way.”
Following this, I created a user flow to visualize how the new feature would look as the user goes through the happy path. A quick summary is that users press and hold a text message which prompts the new reaction window, and then they can select an emoji of their choice.
Prototype
With the process visualized, it was time to start prototyping. I decided to jump right into the hi-fi prototype since I was able to find a WhatsApp template in the Figma community that I was able to manipulate and customize for my feature.
As far as the design goes, not only did I add in the emoji reaction feature, but I also redesigned the reaction window prompt to scroll up from the bottom and to fit the width of the screen. The reason for this is because I felt that the screen wasn’t being fully utilized previously and created awkward white space. This also resulted in more of a cohesive reaction system, as the previous reactions have now been merged with the emoji reactions.
You can check out the prototype here! As always, I welcome any critique or feedback so please feel free to leave a comment.
Conclusion
To wrap up this week’s project, here are some of my final findings:
- Users of the product will often times be more than happy to talk about the app; what they like, what they don’t like, and what they feel can be improved on or added
- Due to how popular WhatsApp is worldwide, surveys proved to be very valuable for gathering information.
- Some of the most obvious features can be overlooked by these giant tech companies (adding this one feature is an example of that).
- Overlay interactions are tricky but awesome!
And with that, I look forward to what’s to come in week 4 as the Ironhack train keeps on rolling!
