Facebook's messaging app, Messenger, has been one of the most downloaded apps for years. Many discover the platform through its integration with Facebook, but users often explore other apps like iMessage for their main communication needs. While Messenger offers a wide range of features, some users find it challenging to fully utilize its capabilities.
I was the prototyping lead and product designer for the Messenger redesign team.
SKILLS
Visual Design, Prototyping, Product Thinking
TIMELINE
6 weeks
TEAM
Jessica Chu, Cody Mak, Jessica Mei, Sriram Magesh
Dedicated Marketplace section for buyers and sellers, driven by user demand for clearer roles in Marketplace chats.
Enhanced personalization and ability to make video and audio calls to differentiate messenger from its competitors.
Separated chats and prioritized key features to minimize confusion and emphasize communication with loved ones.
After understanding a bit more about the problem, early goals were created for our user interviews and surveys to better understand specific painpoints and experiences of the current messenger redesign
When gathering research insights, I aimed to be objective by creating unbiased survey questions and using the 5 why technique in interviews, avoiding leading or biased questions to ensure objectivity.
Meet Walter Rodriguez, a first-generation college student who struggles with maintaining communication with his family outside of the U.S. From learning to live alone, Walter seeks affordable options to be more financially secure. Walter is a popular kid, so he finds difficulty communicating with all of his friends at once.
Once we narrowed down our focus, we were able to create pain points which would help guide us into the main focuses for our redesign.
My team and I had sought to create solutions that would best address the needs of Walter. I had focused on making Marketplace a more recognizable and pertinent section within the sketches.
Throughout the transition from Hi-FI to final designs, a lot of minor changes had been implemented to improve the overall flow of our work. In particular, I had worked on ensuring design protoype aligned and flowed properly from one flow to the next.
Group and personal chats are separated to help people connect with their loved ones without sorting through a long list of conversations.
Users now have the ability to create their own space to chat with different people in different groups.
Marketplace chats are now fully actualized to allow for buying and selling transactions to be completed within Messenger.
I want to shout out my amazing team for being great to work with and incredibly accommodating. It was my first time working with a team of designers, and I really grew more confident in my UX abilities. I also got my first hands-on experience with Figma and prototyping an entire app.
If I had further time to explore this concept, I would definitely focus more on the Marketplace section, and think about how third party integrations would be incorporated with this product.
Feel free to contact me for any future projects.
