Idea: Messenger with default viewing expanded size videos/photos on tap with one-tap to advance and text appears after media or text appears when tap “Close” (#60)

Purpose is to highlight photos/videos by people sent in Messenger more prominently and hopefully encourage more sharing of photos/videos.

Published in

D.J. Sherrets

3 min readFeb 29, 2016

Photos/videos sent are received as thumbnails that are somewhat small relative to the Messenger screen size, and so tapping is needed to see the media.

Start on the Messenger list. Note that the number of unread messages appears as a number centered on the bottom of each profile photo. Tap on Person 1 who has “3” unread messages.
The unread photos/videos load first, starting with the first media which is a photo. Note that the full screen isn’t used, but about as much space as reasonable while still showing “Person 1” at the top bar, and a smaller version of the second photo/video with text that says “Tap for next.” Alternatively, you can swipe up to advance to the next. If you want to “Close”, you can tap “Close” or swipe down which would take you to the message thread of Person 1 (and that thread is shown in step 4). In this case, tap on “Tap for next.”
This loads the second media which is a video. Note that the next unread message is text and shows the first part of the text message, and note that on top says “Tap to return” which means to return to view the prior media which was the photo. Alternatively, you can return to the prior media by swiping down. Tap “Tap for next.”
Now the images and text animate to show the typical message thread. That way you can see the text and then decide what you want to do such as tap “Text” to reply or something else.
Tap “Back” to return to the Messenger list, and note that the “3” for unread is gone because you have viewed all the unread messages.

Tapping on a photo/video when in the viewer could expand to full size. Or just when done looking at unread photos/videos or after tapping “Close” then tapping on a photo or video could play that full screen. So this viewer could only appear when there are new photos/videos to look at.
Alternatively, the viewer for looking at photos/videos in a Messenger conversation could appear when the user taps to view a photo or video.
Reason this idea may not make sense is that it may be better to just show all that is new in one screen then let the user decide whether to tap for details, otherwise perhaps a user may see the media open then close the app. But hopefully the interface is clear to “Tap for next” along with the preview of the second photo/video not yet seen as well as the preview for when there is text to view last.