Why I hate the design of WhatsApp.
I know the title is loud, but it is intentional. As an enlightened mystic once said,
Hate is only the love standing upside down.
It is my love for people with little fingers using their big screen phone while standing on a crowded platform and waiting for the train; it is my love for the busy folks who want to just-get-it-done; it is for my mom who is still learning to chat with me. Hence I am writing this article to highlight some of the design flaws, which I feel WhatsApp team could have done better, followed by their solutions. (Hey, I am not just a critic. I solve problems. ;) )
These observations are out of my experience of using the WhatsApp Android App 2.18.46, the web app and the Windows 10 app.
1. Addition to a group without consent.
- If a person has my contact, that does not permit them to add me in a group of strangers and then have me ‘leave the group’ with a notification.
Learn from your partner company Instagram — when a user sends a message to anyone, it allows us to Accept/Decline it. Hence, respecting our privacy and will.
2. Reflection of the settings across the platforms.
- If I mute a group or a person, the unread notifications are still visible as the Android app icon badge, the favicon number, the favicon badge and the title of the web app. By definition, mute is to avoid any attention seeking element in the design. Hence, fix it.
3. Must have features for a WhatsApp Group.
- A group is made to share information and/or collaborate with others. These tasks need options like pinning a message, a group description or a Welcome message set by the Admin.
And thank you so much for adding the @tag feature :)
4. Show options around the context.
- The ‘Replying to messages’ is a great feature which helps in keeping the threads connected in a conversation but the options are sitting far up on the App bar. After a long press on a message, the options to Reply, forward, delete or star should appear around that selected message. Similar to the Cut, Copy, Paste panel that appears on Android. And this applies to everything like contacts, the list of chats or statuses. The ‘more options’ for a message in a chat can also be triggered by a double tap which is faster and fits naturally in the flow instead of a long press (like double click on the web app).
5. “This message was deleted!”
- Oh god! Why tell the other person that ‘This message was deleted’ — if one is deleting it before the other person has read the message, it should simply disappear. It is utter foolishness, triggering another conversation asking ‘What did you delete?’ >Why designers why?<
6. Caption and Image are together.
- While forwarding an image with a caption, allow the user to forward it along with its captions, maybe give an option to opt-out via a checkbox. A caption for an image becomes an integral part of it.
7. An option to edit the phone-book contact before sharing.
- One should have an option to change the name, remove the photo and other information while sharing a phone-book contact via the app. It is natural for people to save names of their contacts as their nicknames.
8. Be consistent.
- While chatting with someone, the status of the other person appears as ‘typing…’ or ‘recording audio…’ hence, it should also show ‘clicking photo…’, ‘shooting a video…’, ‘uploading a document…’ and likewise.
9. Save user’s preferences.
- I recently migrated WhatsApp to my new phone; I was happy along the way that it restored my Name, the About text status and to my wonder even my profile picture. I was expecting it might have also saved my App settings but only to get disappointed. I have to mute all my groups again, change my notification settings, mute ringtones, change the ‘always-on’ media download settings and not to miss the Font size. Hence, the need to save the user preferences unless they perform a reset.
10. Personalize the WhatsApp with usage.
- I feel there is a need to sort the numbers of a contact who has multiple WhatsApp accounts based on the number of interactions with them in the past or an option to label them. Hence, a user on the other side understands which one is personal/business number or active/inactive.
11. Every call doesn’t need feedback.
- The duration of a call is a clear indicator for the quality of the call. A long duration call indicates that it went smoothly hence there is no point in feedback. However, asking for feedback after calls with short duration might give them some authentic and useful information. And also please consider putting a redial button for shorter duration call.
12. Use the language that your user base understands.
- A good design is when it talks to its user in the language they already know. Words like Encryption, Read receipt; instead, they could have used phrases like High-security and Blue ticks/Delivery report/Read message along with a short description.
Thank you for your reading time. If you agree that at some point you’ve faced these problems, clap the article. Else show your boo… in the comments.
Here goes my first medium post :)
❤ from India
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