WhatsApp Poll
Adding a poll feature to WhatsApp
Project Duration: Four Weeks, 80 hours | Role: Solo UX/UI Designer | Tools: Figma, Whimsical, Procreate
Background
WhatsApp is one of the world’s most popular messaging applications, having surpassed 2 billion worldwide users. While its user base continues to grow, WhatsApp lacks a feature that many of its competitors offer: polls.
This speculative project emerged from my personal experience as a frequent WhatsApp user. As a member of several large ongoing group chats, I often find it difficult to make a collective group-wide decision. It occurred to me that an integrated poll feature could potentially allow users to quickly and easily establish group consensus.
Challenge
Design a new feature for the WhatsApp mobile application that allows users to create and vote in a poll.
Goals
Build a seamlessly integrated poll feature within WhatsApp’s existing design framework.
Design a poll creation process that is simple and intuitive, with easily understandable settings and features.
Allow users to quickly and easily cast their votes and view results.
Research
After researching poll features offered by other messaging apps, it became clear that each platform offered various degrees of control to users. An initial design challenge emerged: How to strike a balance between freedom and simplicity. Too many constraints and users would be unable to customize a poll to their liking. Too many options however, would threaten to overwhelm users and distract from the ultimate goal.
I also conducted a survey and interviews in order to drill deeper into user habits related to group texting. Survey results revealed that texting was the preferred method for group communication, and when using group texting to organize events, people preferred to ask the group for opinions before making a final decision. These research insights suggested that I was on the right path.
One-on-one interviews also reinforced the potential value of a WhatsApp poll feature, and provided useful data to consider before starting the design phase.
Design
Working off research insights, I began to consider several major design questions, the first of which being: Should users be able to interact with the poll inside of the chat, or should it be contained in a separate area of the app?
During interviews, users noted that it was easy to lose track of things in large group chats. By housing the poll feature in a separate area, while including the option to pin it as a reminder, the poll would remain accessible without causing visual clutter.
A user flow (above) and sketches (below) of the poll creation process helped maintain focus on the user’s tasks and direct interactions.
Sketches allowed me to quickly map out questions and problems related to the poll creation process. How should users be alerted to the creation of a poll? Should the chat be automatically updated each time a group member cast a vote? What would happen if someone tried to view poll results before casting their own vote? I also thought about what kind of language should be used, and what would happen if someone who already voted tried to vote again. Sketching encouraged me to start thinking about these questions and others.
I then began to build out high fidelity screens, and in order for the poll feature to feel seamless, I used existing WhatsApp and iOS components. The screens tell the story of a user in a group chat who is attempting to poll his friends in order to decide what National Park they will visit. I built screens for each step of the journey because I knew user testing would be crucial. These initial screens were fundamental to mapping out the overall poll process, including creation, active and end states.
I also tackled the issue of user control by providing poll creators with the ability to toggle a few basic settings: anonymous and multiple-choice voting, a setting requiring users to vote before allowing them to view the poll results, and an option to pin the poll to the chat.
Several restrictions were also built into the design in order to encourage voting and ensure a final result:
The poll would be limited to a total of six options.
Once posted, the poll could not be changed.
If selected, the poll time limit could only be set between one and seven days.
Ultimately, each of these design decisions was based on research insights and the goal of promoting user interaction with the poll feature.
Another challenge I faced was designing a poll interface that seamlessly transitioned from an interactive voting state to a viewable results page. I achieved this by building the poll element in Figma as a variable component, with an animation to visualize the transition.
User Testing and Design Revisions
After completing an initial prototype, I conducted user testing via Zoom, and unsurprisingly, several issues cropped up. I iterated on the design and made some changes.
Conclusion
Designing within an existing product presents its own unique set of challenges. This project forced me to confront these challenges and develop as a designer. Though it emerged from my own personal experience as a WhatsApp user, I ultimately believe that my research and user testing validated my initial assumption - that a poll feature could be useful to groups making plans and trying to come to a collective decision.