Unified Communication App
Streamline your communication chaos with our unified platform, syncing conversations from various tools seamlessly and providing a one-stop solution for effortless collaboration.
Why create this platform?
In today's world, users use different communication tools in a business environment, i.e email, text, outlook/hangout/slack, whatsApp. Many a times, there are multiple tools used at different points in time.
A user might have started to communicate on an email and later on might have had some side bar conversations via text or on slack.
Users lose context if they are not able to access all these conversations at once.
So what would be ideal is a platform that not only shows all these conversations in one place, but allows for any updates happening via any one of these tools to sync with all the platforms.
I got intrigued by this idea and decided to conduct a study and come up with an app that would put users' life at ease.
In this case study, I'll be looking at the opportunities that the unified platform can bring to our communication habits.
Goal
Design an app that improves efficieny and productivity by having all the services under one roof.
Role
User research, Interaction design, Visual design, prototyping, testing
Tools
Figma, Miro, Usability testing.
Affinity Diagram
With a good amount of data in hand, I grouped and organised the information in an affinity diagram.
Key Findings
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Most participants would use more than one communication app to achieve their goals. However having to switch between apps led to some challenges such as messages left unanswered. Indeed users would prioritize one or two communication apps over others. Feeling overwhelmed by the amount of notifications coming through was also a concern and users would have different methods to remove distractions.
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Majority of users were concerned about their privacy settings and were keen change their settings after signing up for a new communication app. However the actual process of changing privacy settings within apps was perceived as challenging.
1st iteration...
​With the key features and user flow defined , I started to capture my ideas by sketching low-fidelity screens using pen and paper. It enabled me to examine my ideas before moving onto digital wireframes.
2nd Iteration...
Once I had a visual direction for the app layout, I started to add more details and precisions to the sketches by turning them into mid-fidelity wireframes. In these wireframes, I included elements that directly address users' goals, needs, frustrations while incorporating common design patterns seen in other communication apps.
chatapp
The Design system (color, typography, iconography) used for this project...
App Name- UnifiedChat App
The app's main function is to unify the various attributes found in communications apps such as conversations, notifications and shared files. Hence I decided to emphasize this aspect in the app name making it sound as intuitive as possible as it works.
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Style Guide
Before moving the prototype onto a High-fidelity version, I built a mood-board in order to help me define the visual aspects of the app. The idea was to find styles and colors that could be attributed to appeasement and sociability which the app aims to deliver through its functions.
Research!
User Interviews
I started the research phase with 5 in-depth interviews. My goal was to find out how the participants would behave with their communication apps as well as understanding the challenges they may have faced and how they would overcome them.
Target Audience
The interviews were carried out with participants aged late 20’s and early 30’s. As I wanted to cover a wide part of the spectrum, the participants’ backgrounds were varied and included profession fields such as Sales, Recruiters, Marketing and Design. All participants had a fairly good understanding of their smartphones and their communication apps which are used personal or work purposes.
User Surveys
Some interesting behaviors were showed during the interviews and to make the data more realistic, I created a survey to confirm and/or dismiss the findings from the research and gathered 14 answers.
Personas
Meet Susan!
A Software Engineer working at a start-up, who enjoys a hectic lifestyle and uses plenty of communication apps.
Meet Stephen!
A busy Recruiter who multi-tasks on various documents through various communication platforms.
Outcome
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View Slideshow
When "Combined messages form different platform" option is disabled.
Takeaways!
As this was first design challenge, the whole experience was packed with learnings from beginning to end. I now have a good grasp of the design thinking process by practicing each step but most importantly by understanding my mistakes. Here are some of my reflections:
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The different research methods used in this project helped me see the data in different lenses and allowed me to create a better experience for the users.
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Problem-solve and validate assumptions by gathering data. The users and data will guide you through your concept.
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Usability testing will help you determine if design features align with the user goals.