Being a good friend with the new WhatsApp Birthday Feature
Have you ever forgotten someone’s birthday? I think this has happened to all of us before. To prevent this in the future, I have designed a birthday feature for WhatsApp within 4 days as part of the UX/UI Design Bootcamp at Ironhack Berlin.
The Challenge
The task was to design a feature whether in iOS or Material Design that would improve the usability of an existing digital product or service. On the fourth day, we should present the high-fidelity prototype to our class. The topic was randomly assigned after our class thought about ideas. This project was a solo-project and my first week learning about UI design.
The idea for the feature came from my classmate because she has trouble remembering birthdays. She still uses Facebook to regularly check her friends’ birthdays, even though she doesn’t even like Facebook anymore.
Design Thinking Process
1. Research
I did some research to know what users expect from the feature.
To do this, I interviewed 8 people who use WhatsApp on a daily basis to get as much insight and qualitative data as possible.
During the interview, I found out that the feature is met with great enthusiasm. Most of the interviewees can only roughly remember the month of their friends’ birth, but not the exact date.Some of the respondents who know the exact date of birth forget to congratulate on that day. I also found that the majority do not want to congratulate every person in their contact list, as some contacts are more valuable than others.
2. Define
After checking out the competitors like Hip and Facebook I wrote Job Stories to consider which motivations are behind the user and to get a better understanding of what my product should achieve. Here is a small excerpt:
Jobs to be done
- When someone’s birthday is approaching, I want to have a reminder so that I can congratulate this person.
- When it’s my friends birthday, I want to send a personal message so that I can be a good friend.
- If I forgot to congratulate someone on their birthday, I want the app to do that for me so I have a clear conscience.
3. Ideate
User Flow
I had an idea in mind and created a User Flow to work out what steps the user takes to send a birthday message. This also helped me later to organize the screens for the prototype.
4. Prototype
I started with a paper prototype. With little effort, I had a testable product and could quickly make changes after testing.
My idea is that the user receives a notification from WhatsApp as soon as a person from the contact list has its birthday. By opening WhatsApp, the user gets directly into the chat with the person and a prescripted birthday message appears in the input field. Now the congratulator can simply send the message or make some adjustments beforehand.
n the chat overview (left screen in the image above), the profile picture will have a highlighter indicating that it is the person’s birthday today. There is also a birthday calendar that shows all upcoming birthdays of the contacts.
In the settings (second and third screen in the picture above), you can switch on/off birthday reminders for each contact and assign the person to a specific group. You can customize the default birthday message by clicking on the contact’s profile.
5. Testing and Iteration
After testing, I made some changes. Two icons were misplaced on the birthday settings. The birthday calendar icon and the icon to start a new chat are not needed at this place and irritated the user. I revised the paper prototype (see red marks) and collected all the components for the interface inventory, then I started designing the high-fidelity prototype in iOS design.
High-Fidelity Screens
Interactive Prototype
Next steps
In the next steps, I would design the feature in Material Design as well.
I would also like to add a new feature that automatically sends a message (at a preset time) to the birthday person, should someone skip the birthday reminder and then forget to congratulate. But first I would need to find out if this feature is needed, and if so, I should be aware that the feature needs to be personalized, since birthday wishes are a personal thing that everyone should feel comfortable with.
Any feedback? Let’s get in touch. Contact me on LinkedIn.
