Snapchat Redesign (2019) — UX Case Study
side note: I am not affiliated with Snapchat, this is a case study that does not suggest that Snapchat must abandon their current design. This is a personal project to find solutions to enhance the user’s experience.
Brief
Role: UX Designer
Timeline: 2 months
Tools: Figma
Deliverables: Interactive Prototype
Overview
Ever since 2011, Snapchat has risen to become one of the most popular applications among social media. From 2018–19, Snapchat’s most recent mobile updates has received much controversy over the interface as consumers have expressed their frustrations and concerns with their overall experience with Snapchat. Last year more than 1,000,000 supporters have petitioned for the app to change it’s interface. Why specifically are users upset with Snapchat’s design layout and it’s core features? Has the new update fixed the app’s problems? What components of it’s interface can be improved? And how can navigation become more clear to use?
I decided to see how far I could push myself as a designer, researcher, and problem solver to provide useful solutions to the remaining interface issues that are currently unresolved to present creative solutions for a better user experience to the app we all love and enjoy.
Problem Statement: Many users find features within Snapchat difficult to use and navigate to achieve desired user goals.
Understanding Snapchat
Snapchat is popular messaging app that lets users exchange pictures and videos with one another.
More than 90% of Snapchat users are between the age of 13–24 years old, and roughly 61% of Snapchat users are female and 38% are male according to the public statistics and demographics provided by Snap, Inc.
Generally, Snapchat is a platform that is mostly targeted towards early adolescent and young adult audiences (a.ka. the younger generation)
Personal goals
my goals for the redesign:
- To learn and research as much about Snapchat and it’s users as I can
- To create a more engaging and seamless experience when it comes to exploring and staying connected with friends
- Identify critical problems and develop relevant design solutions
- Develop methods for creating interfaces that are less confusing to old/new users to improve product navigation
my goals for my own personal development:
- Learn how to conduct and analyze user research, create user flow diagrams, and build wireframes and user journeys
- Design through Sketch, Figma, and prototype with InVision
- Demonstrate my design thinking and thought process
The roles I’ve undergone during this process
- User Researcher
- UX/UI Designer
- Product Designer
Integrating the Design Thinking process
Before I begin my redesign of Snapchat, I need to gain a better understanding of who I am designing for and what problems that currently face. By utilizing the Human Centered Design Thinking process, I can collect user research to design based upon user needs to find relevant solutions that benefit both the company of Snap, Inc and their users.
User research
- What does a typical Snapchat user look like?
- What keeps them returning to the platform?
- What features are favored more than others? And why?
To gain further data I conducted in-person interviews and phone calls of up to 50–80 people. I ask them a series of questions along with a set of tasks to complete in order to gain better context of their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences with using Snapchat and it’s features.
Demographics
The interview process consisted of 15 males and 35 females, on average the amount of users were between the age of 18–24 years old that are currently pursing a college or high school education. As an interesting fact to include, nearly 73% of the people I interviewed frequently use Snapchat as their primary source for promoting on-campus events or communicating with friends. About 56.71% of users open Snapchat atleast 8 times a week with an average usage time of about 15–30 mins per day.
I asked the majority of Snapchat users that I interviewed to answer the following:
What aspects of Snapchat are you most unhappy with? Which features are more difficult for you to use?
Here are the majority of their responses:
“there should be options to customize feed on the discover page, I hate reading s*** that I’m not interested in…”
“I barely know how to unsubscribe, or even remove someone from a group chat”
“Discover page is terrible, why do I keep seeing the Kardashians? They keep popping up everywhere. The concept seems cool, but this just makes me want to use Instagram instead honestly”
“the chat page is way too cluttered, like there’s so much going on”
Below are top 5 reasons why users based initial interviews, love using Snapchat:
- Seeing what friends are up to
- Allows for more creativity when creating content
- Makes them feel happy
- Great for promoting events
- Exploring what’s trending
User persona of a common Snapchat user
Usability testing
The purpose of this usability test is to analyze how the digital product performs within Snapchat’s main target audience so that I can design in ways that align with Snap, Inc’s business goals and consumer market to increase retention and provide a more enjoyable experience. Based on the validated research collected thus far, I can use the current persona available as a guide for the types of users that I intend to test from general public that are the most current and accurate representative of Snapchat’s main target audience.
I decided to meet with about 20–40 people that I personally know that best fits the user persona and provided then with a series of tasks to complete. After tasks were completed, users were asked to note features that they were struggling most with.
Based on my results, the navigation knowledge of Snapchat weren’t as strong as I anticipated:
Stories:
- 64.1% had trouble sending snap stories to multiple friends
Filters:
- 91.8% of users performed using filters successfully with full usability
Discover Page:
- 9.18% knew how to unsubscribe from content creators and commercial platforms
- 13.9% of people knew how to remove channels or sponsored pages from the Discover feed
In addition, some users have expressed that some of the friends that they have already removed from their friends list show up in the subscription feed. Based on the results collected, many people are unaware how to unsubscribe which means that this may be annoying for many users that have less control over what they want to see.
The data and research results thus far suggests that Snapchat users have moderate knowledge of navigation, but lack of simplicity within features made it difficult or longer for them to use to achieve desired goals.
Research also suggests that a majority of users use the app to either send snaps and chat with friends. The Discover page is rarely used by many of the users that I have interviewed.
Highlighting the problem
After collecting the responses and data from the people that I interviewed, I made a map of what is most valuable to Snapchat and what is most valuable to the user. Afterwards, I highlighted the problems that are most important to both Snapchat and it’s users to build relevant solutions that are in the interest of both parties. Upon building the chart above, I selected the issues that were the most problematic and begin analyze these issues for a greater understanding in order to create a relevant solution.
Problem #01: Chat
The chat page causes much confusion because snap stories, chats, and snaps are all put together on one page. In addition, it can incredibly difficult to manage friends and coversations within the page due to the removal of alphabetical or chronological order sorting. If a user wants to search for an older message or conversation, the only available option would be to constantly scroll down the bottom of the page to find that particular chat.
Problem #02: Discover page
Only 13.9% of people knew how to remove channels or sponsored pages from the Discover feed. Many users based the research collect rarely use this page other than to watch they’re friend’s stories. The biggest reasons why users rarely use this page is because:
(1) they kept seeing new stories from people they don’t care about
(2) less likely to interact with friends and rewatch stories because of page clutter
(3) lack of control over what content they see or explore
The lack of customization in the Discover page makes it difficult for users to focus on their friends since the page is cluttered with content that is not relevant to the user. Imagine using YouTube or Netflix to watch your favorite content creators and your constantly recommended channels you aren’t interested in.
“Discover page is terrible, why do I keep seeing the Kardashians? They keep popping up everywhere. The concept seems cool, but this just makes me want to use Instagram instead honestly”
According to my user research, the usage of the Discover page is minimal and rarely used. Many users would very much prefer to have the ability to customize their Discover experience. My research suggested that less than 30% of the users knew how to unsubscribe from channels and content creators. Not having the ability to customize the Discover page has caused many users to go Instagram to escape the overload of sponsored content on the discover page.
Snapchat prioritizes sponsored content on the discover page which can make it difficult for users to focus on specifically on their friends when they post their stories.
Problem #03: Account settings
One of the most subtle issues among users is the navigation settings, the page is cluttered with unfamiliar terms and phrases that the user may not initially understand. This will ultimately increase the amount of time it takes for a user to complete a desired action. Many users resort to searching online in the hopes of finding tutorials on how to use the settings page in for gain a better understanding of it’s functionality
In addition, the setting page lacks organization since many of the sections are scattered in different areas making the entire page a needle in a hay stack when looking to complete a task. According to my user research, about 27 out of 31 of users struggled with changing privacy preferences in their experience with Snapchat.
“I had to search online just just to figure that out…”
Many users have resorted to either finding ways to revert to the older updates through dangerous methods or finding online tutorials to learn how to navigate through the app to learn how to customize their personal preferences and achieve desired user goals.
In short, I’ve concluded that all the current problems that are present in the Snapchat does not allow for users to achieve their specific goals in a fast and efficient manner. Now that that I understand the challenge many users face, I can begin find ways to solve these issues.
The Solution
After identifying and defining the current problems of the interface I began to create low fidelity sketches to develop a relevant solution while still keeping the business goals of Snapchat in mind.
By creating these sketches I was able to come up with a relevant solution and begin building high fidelity prototypes. Before I moved forward with the wire framing process however, I wanted to also understand the functionality of my redesign and determine if my design systems simplifies the user experience.
I decided build a user flow system for three reasons:
(1) To have a better understanding how each feature functions in relation to one another
(2) Find ways to reduce page clutter and improve user navigation
(3) Create a user flow system that users are more familiar with in comparison to other competitive platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc
Once I had a strong conceptual grasp of my systematic design methods, I immediately developed wire frames based on the research gathered to produce high fidelity mock-ups.
Upon visualizing feasible solutions, the wire frames provided consisted of a organized and authentic restructuring for enhanced usability. With the visuals blueprints completed, I followed the enhanced UX concept and began to build the final solutions for the product.
Solution #1: Chat
By having stories displays above the chats, newer users can have an easier time interacting with content posted by their contacts. In addition, the message icons were smaller in the previous updates, since there are different types of messages in Snapchat (snaps, chats, calls), icons have been placed on the left side of the screen to help better determine the type of message present to avoid confusion.
Solution #2: Discover
In the previous versions of the Snapchat update, the Discover page lacked customization which lead to much controversy because of users consistently seeing uninterested content. With this solution, users will be able to see the different categories available to watch so that they are not only limited to the “For you” section. Previous Snapchat updates provided these different watch categories, but users are unaware that these options exist.
Solution #3: Settings
New settings categories have been added to help users acheive their users goals when browsing the settings area. I have listed seven categories to save time and effort when looking to complete an action:
- My Account
2. Privacy
3. Notifications
4. Permissions
5. Preferences
6. Help
7. About Snapchat
The purpose of these changes to were to improve UX navigation for users and reduce confusion by avoiding using terms many users are unfamiliar with and to save time when browsing.
Solution #4: Subscribing
Many users based on my research collect are completely unaware how to unsubscribe from content on the Discover page. I placed the subscribe button below the name of the channel and made it visible so that users will know that this option is available.
Takeaways & Validation
Among completing this study I have learned that Snapchat is a very well developed product. Many of the features built in Snapchat are well crafted, but many users are unaware that these helpful features exist which make using the app more difficult for users. With all of the heavy criticism that Snapchat has received, it just requires a minor amount of changes that provides users with a more efficient means of navigation and customization. Users struggle with Snapchat due to lack of organizations, simplicity, and navigation. The redesign aligns with the business needs with the changes made to the Discover page to which more ads can be displayed in the video content area.
Thank you for taking the time to reading this far!
Click below to use the interactive prototype
