Why Snapchat Matters
Fast sharing and fast consumption of video is part of the future of social, and it’s an opportunity shared by other leading messaging and sharing apps. Here are 32 design concepts about what could be done and why.
You may think of Snapchat as a social network for people under 25 years old, and so that Snapchat is a contained entity that will not matter outside of that age range. But that’s changing. Snapchat has the potential to go for 1 billion daily actives and beyond, but even if Snapchat doesn’t realize that potential, Snapchat still represents part of what’s possible for how people can share a lot — particularly video — and watch a lot of video quickly. That’s a reason why Snapchat especially matters.
This is an immense area of opportunity for people to share their lives and get to know people through their experiences. The rapid growth of sharing is seen in particularly with the other leading messaging apps as well.
In particular, Snapchat by featuring default full screen videos/photos — meaning that there is no way to view videos/photos on Snapchat other than full screen on your mobile device — for some people represents a confusing interface that must revert to more typical designs. And updating designs is surely required to help retain and engage people over the long-term especially as people’s needs change, but even more so Snapchat’s default full screen is an important area to explore how people may navigate and interact. As screen sizes get bigger, there are also opportunities for nearly fullscreen navigation by default or an ability to quickly view a near fullscreen navigation mode as well.
And so below are explorations of what could make sense with full screen interactions as Snapchat does, and this could apply to any media service particularly with videos. A reason to have “for” and “against” for each design is to weigh why to or not do something, and with the understanding that many ideas will not be done for sake of focus on high impact.
I have posted the below ideas previously on Medium, and so more details are available by tapping the link for each.
Please note that I don’t know Snapchat’s priorities, whereas Snapchat has the data to help inform what matters.
Select
These are some select ideas I would like to highlight from the list.
For: Purpose is to enable people to identify what media they want to view, including starting with a default summary view followed by viewing the categories and list of particular Stories under that. Opportunity is to significantly increase how many Stories are available to be viewed.
Against: Snapchat may not choose to try to provide a huge amount of media available to be viewed in favor of a more limited, curated set of media for people to check out daily.
2. Summary Story with ability to swipe to see particular person’s Snapchat Story in detail (#34)
For: Purpose is to enable people to get an idea of what has happened since they were last on Snapchat without necessarily having to tap to load every person, and without being limited to viewing just a few people if that’s all the time available. Opportunity is to increase how many different people users view Stories, as well as how many Stories are viewed as well. Alternative is to show up to the first 2 posts of each friend so that way there’s some context to decide whether to watch more. Preserves chronological viewing.
Against: Changes the expectation of only showing Stories chronologically, and better to focus on chronologically only.
3. Button to both “Add to Story” and use “Camera” to do in one-tap & help people share more (#52)
For: Easier to share more videos/photos such as in moments when there’s a lot of activity. This does in 1 tap that today in Snapchat requires 3 gestures. Use cases: talking past the 10 second limit, action happening that won’t be repeated, etc.
Against: People may not understand the combination of “Add to Story” and “Camera.” May require keeping an “Add to Story” button for people who don’t want to add another photo/video to their Story.
4. One-tap access to Chat/Camera/Stories & keep swipe to switch Chat to Camera to Stories (#50)
For: Purpose is to make clear what Chat/Stories/Camera/etc are by including text saying what each button is, and making the screens available with one tap between Chat and Stories to save having to swipe twice. Ability to swipe is still available.
Against: Perhaps label the buttons such as “Chat” and “Stories”, but better to focus on making clear how to use swipe gestures because easier to swipe once learned than find and tap on a particular button.
For: Purpose is to increase viewing of Chat and Stories without having to swipe from the Camera view while still making just as easy to make photos/videos. Opportunity includes helping people understand when there are Chats and Stories available to be viewed with one tap after app opens. Unread chats have a line around the profile photo of the sender.
Against: The Camera view should always only show the Camera view, and the buttons to access Chat and Stories should be as small as reasonable to keep the focus on creating photos/videos to be shared.
Stories:
Stories appears to be an increasingly important part of Snapchat if not the most important growth opportunity by enabling people to watch a lot of videos and photos. These concepts explore how people select to download Stories through how those Stories are watched.
6. Notification when all Stories you tapped to load are downloaded & ready to be watched (#49)
For: Purpose is to let downloading media happen and know when you can actually watch. Enables people to quickly return to Snapchat when Stories that have a lot of videos has fully loaded, while still letting the person leave Snapchat to visit another app in the meantime.
Against: People can decide whether they want to return to Snapchat to check if downloading is completed or not.
For: Purpose is to make clear when each post in a Story has loaded to give an indication when the loading may be completed.
Against: Loading doesn’t need to show an indicator. A loading bar may be distracting to a user, particularly when tapping lots of different Stories to load.
For: Purpose includes watching only photos for faster loading times, or watching only videos to enjoy motion without seeing only a static image. Helps in particular when viewing Stories that have a lot of videos when on a mobile connection that isn’t loading fast.
Against: Stories are meant to be viewed with both photos and videos, and interrupting the order of that disrupts the focus of Stories on chronological viewing.
9. Two-finger swipe gesture to play video on Snapchat at 2x or 1/2x speed (#36)
For: Purpose is to enable people to watch more by watching in 2x speed or see a video from another perspective with slow motion to see the details such as motion. Opportunity is to help people watch videos faster and overall increase ability to watch more videos.
Against: Doing this gesture may be hard to do. People may prefer to watch videos at only the pace that was uploaded.
For: Context helps with understanding what someone has done in their Stories, particularly if there are many posts throughout the day, including in some cases when this could be clear about how many distinct places are being visited.
Against: Reading the text about time and distance differences may be hard to do while watching a Story. People sharing may not want to share the time and distance changes, and people watching may not be interested in seeing the time different. The Story itself may provide some indication already of time and distance differences such as based on whether sun and where the person posting is.
11. Tap to load Stories that each load to a “Playlist” & then watch in order (#32)
For: Purpose is to enable the user to choose which users they want to watch, then make it easy to watch those users’ Stories in order of selection without returning to the Stories screen until done viewing those Stories. This includes the ability to swipe to skip from one person’s Story to the next person’s Story. Alternatively, put the Playlist loading from the top of the page above “My Story” so easier to access.
Against: People can already see which Story appears to have loaded or not.
Sharing:
Sharing is core to Snapchat and has resulted in significant growth in sharing videos and photos. There are opportunities to reduce the steps needed to share.
For: Purpose is to make easy to post to Story by tapping in place, and to only prompt to add to local Story after posting to your own Story so that way posting is as easy as possible for people who choose to not add to a local Story. Saves one tap for people in places where there is oftentimes a prompt after “Add to Story” to decide whether to also add to a local Story.
Against: Prompting to “Add to Local Story” may be an important feature to see if people want to contribute. One extra gesture across the screen may be the acceptable trade-off.
For: Enable people to continue to easily use to other types of Stories while focusing on ease of posting to Story.
Against: Arrow on the side better so person can tap “Add to Story” then decide whether to make a selection and clearly make that additional gesture by moving finger to the right corner, which may also increase how many people post to the Local Story.
For: Purpose is to enable new friends to be able to see older posts that the person really wanted to save and let their friends experience later.
Against: Snapchat’s focus is on “default delete” and it’s up to each person to use the “save” feature and use a different service to choose to share those saved photos/videos with friends.
15. Add audio to photo posts on Snapchat Stories (#44)
For: Purpose is to enable people to share a story about what’s happening without requiring uploading a video.
Against: Video provides ability to add audio. There is limited space for options of allowing users to add media.
16. Provide ability to send reactions on Snapchat visible after viewing media if setting on (#27)
For: Purpose is to enable sharing facial expressions upon viewing media. Reaction starts recording as soon as the photo/video the person was shown appears and the recording stops when the person swipes down to close the photo/video or taps to go to the next photo/video, then the person has the ability to after viewing tap to see the reaction recorded and decide whether to send. If multiple photos/videos are watched in a row, then the reaction is a cumulative video of the reactions across all of those photos/videos. Setting could be available to turn on or off the reactions feature.
Against: Reactions may not yet be something that people care to send very often.
For: Purpose is to enable people to quickly reply with a photo/video or audio message and encourage creating more Stories because of providing feedback that is easy to do.
Against: There may be only particular media reply options that people want.
For: Purpose is to enable people to record live and enable live broadcasting without having to press and maybe up to 5 minutes per broadcast. Also, extending maximum recording time on main Camera view from 10 seconds to 15 seconds so people can share more.
Against: Live broadcast may not be a feature that makes as much sense on Snapchat, and Stories with long Live broadcast posts may take too long to load on mobile today.
Navigation:
Some users say they don’t understand how to navigate Snapchat, and so leave the app and don’t return or return infrequently. There’s an opportunity to make navigating Snapchat clearer.
19. Mini-camera view in corner expands when making video or photo (#43)
For: Purpose is to enable to access the Camera while still being able to access new Chats and Stories.
Against: Confusing to have swipe down for Chat and swipe up for Stories given once Chat or Stories opens then that interaction is focused on swiping up and down too.
For: Purpose is to emphasize paging and full screen navigation so scrolling not necessary. Embraces making navigation easier so you know you get a full new page of content with each swipe rather than having to carefully focus on where you are on the interface based on how much you have scrolled.
Against: Benefit of scrolling is ability to focus the eyes on one part of the interface while new content starts scrolling directly into that part of the interface. Paging requires the user to look to the top of the interface then read down.
For: Purpose is to simplify by only having one screen to view Chats and Stories, and make as easy to view Chats or Stories as it is to make a photo or video.
Against: Confusing to people who want to make a photo/video and the Camera is obscured by the overlay.
For: Helps with determining when the Camera is fully loaded.
Against: People may get used to the current way that Snapchat loads such as by seeing with the Chat and Story button fill in which indicates the app has loaded.
23. Mobile web Snapchat for viewing Stories primarily & link to access Camera (#41)
For: Purpose is to connect to more people who prefers web access to help with growth. Some people significantly prefer using mobile web. Alternatively, the ability to tap to use the camera can also be available.
Against: Snapchat’s focus is on content creation, and any web service that doesn’t allow to default to a camera reduces that focus.
Camera:
The Camera is where people start when opening Snapchat. There are opportunities to consider how the Camera works, including filter selection.
For: Purpose is for the user to be able to drag finger as needed when pressing and holding to make a video since recording a video can require adjusting the finger to where’s needed.
Against: Snapchat already keeps recording when pressing and holding, and better that the recording button stay in one place.
For: Purpose is to indicate which friends have sent you Chats and to increase the number of people who visit the Chat section.
Against: People may already have received notifications of who sent Chats, so showing profile photos may not matter as much.
26. Three quick swipes to open filter selection on Snapchat photo/video (#33)
For: Purpose is to enable people to select from one of many different filters without having to swipe through filters one at a time, while still not using additional interface space. Avoids introducing a separate button to open filter selection, while still making easier to access selection. Consistent with Snapchat’s approach of making new features available that people can discover.
Against: Not necessary, and may need to change the approach to selecting a filter later anyway particularly when supporting more filter options.
27. Music / movie / show filter for Snapchat based on audio in video (#26)
For: Purpose is to enable automatically showing a filter for a given artist / movie / show by matching the audio to a database of sounds.
Against: May not be something that very many people want to use.
Chat:
Chat is the original part of Snapchat, and there are opportunities to help with understanding about who sent what Chats, when more content is available to you such as Stories, and when content sent to you that you may not want to view.
28. Include profile photos in Chat & note if there’s a Story available to view on Snapchat (#31)
For: Purpose is to increase ease of identifying who sent you something and be reminded of Stories to check out in case of not visiting the Stories view.
Against: For consistency, Chat should only show Chats and Stories should only show Stories.
For: Purpose is to enable people to feel comfortable with what content they are opening and to avoid having to view the content and have a reaction to that content that may not be desired.
Against: People may not want content scanned even if done only automatically by a computer.
Selecting recipients:
Selecting recipients is a key part of the sharing flow. There are opportunities to consider how to make it easier for people to find who they want to receive, and confirm the right selections have been made.
For: Helps with easily seeing how many people are selected. Contrast is that today Snapchat shows a subset of selected people in the bottom bar and requires swiping side to side to see more people.
Against: People tend to only select people they want to view and don’t need to see a combined list.
For: Purpose is to provide for more space by combining the search bar with where a summary of recipients are noted. Tap once to see and/or modify currently selected users, and keyboard is also opened to let you search for more recipients.
Against: Combining the search bar with listing selected people may be confusing.
For: Purpose is to encourage interaction with friends who are recently using Snapchat that you may not have realized use Snapchat or may be likely to respond quickly, and suggestions to encourage one-to-one interaction for people who you are mainly watching their Stories or they are mainly watching your Stories.
Against: Better to focus on listing people by “Recent”, and/or better to consider these factors in the algorithm for who to recommend on the sending list without labeling each category.
© 2016 D.J. Sherrets
