Polls for iMessage

Enabling quick and effective group decision making

iMessage has an estimated 1.3 billion active users worldwide (Source: 99 firms). Aside from texting individuals, a majority of Americans also talk in group chats to keep in touch with friends and family, conduct work, share ideas, and make decisions (Source: YouGov America). In the summer of 2022, I wanted to design a poll feature for iMessage that would allow group chat users to more effectively make decisions.

Note: This project was completed prior to Apple's release of their Poll feature for iMessage.

Client
Duration
Tools
Role
Apple (Fictitious)
2 weeks
Product Designer
Figma
Scope
UX/UI Design
Mobile
iOS

Problem

Group decision-making via iMessage can often be slow, confusing, and error-prone.

Objective

Design an experience that enables quick and effective group decision-making on iMessage.

Role

While this was a solo project, my fellow peers at DesignLab provided mentorship and critique.

Problem

Decision making via iMessage group chats can be a confusing, error-prone process.

existing pain points

I spoke to several iMessage users about their experience making decisions on iMessage group chats.

  • Counting votes is manual
    When a question is presented in a group chat and users send their preference/answers, these answers can often get lost in a string of other messages. Particularly, if a user answers a question late, the user collecting answers is likely to miss this. Additionally, the process of counting responses is manual and error prone.
  • The group consensus can be unclear
    It is visually unclear which decision that group has reached. In this example, one user is unclear if Monday was chosen as the day.
Figure 1: Pain points making decisions on iMessage
pain points using reactions

Some users voiced that to reach faster decisions they use the reaction feature to "vote" and reach a group consensus. Here are some pain points that users voiced with this process.

  • Counting reactions is cumbersome
    It is difficult to see how many people reacted to a message. The amount of reactions that a particular message receives is not displayed in numerical form.
  • Reacts are anonymous
    Users can't see who reacted to the message, which could be necessary in certain voting use cases.
  • Counting reactions is error prone
    If one person down votes an option, this might go unnoticed and counted as a "vote" accidentally.
Figure 2: Using reactions to make group decisions on iMessage

OBJECTIVE

How might we enable quick and effective group decision making on iMessage?

research

I studied other messaging platforms with poll features and existing iMessage poll plug-ins.

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Several competitor messaging platforms such as Whatsapp, Slack, and Facebook had native poll features or polls available through a third party plug-in. At the time of this project, iMessage did not have a native poll feature. However, I did browse through the app store and test products from several third party vendors.

Figure 3: Competitor analysis of existing poll products

Many of the poll products had similar functions such as creating a new poll, anonymous voting, allowing voters to add options, allowing users to select more than one option, editing titles/options, launching a poll, and displaying results. I used these features to create a list of product requirements for my iMessage feature.

gENERATIVE interviews

Initially, I spoke to several participants in a group setting about their behavior regarding group chats on iMessage. I asked them how they normally make large scale group decisions and any issues that they have experienced in doing so. Participants provided several design ideas and suggestions such as the ability to add images and dates to polls. (See section on Next steps).

user testing

Interviews and moderated A/B testing helped inform my design approach.

USER interviews

I had several participants review a mid to high-fidelity wireframe halfway through my design process. This was a crucial step in my process and heavily informed my approach to the poll creation flow.

a/b testing

I tested five design variations through a round of moderated A/B testing. In addition to showing them the design variations, I asked the following questions:

Design A

Design B

Design C

Design D

Design E

Figure 4: A/B testing screens

I decided to pursue design C as this was most preferred by the participants in A/B testing. Participants liked having settings displayed upfront on the same screen. They liked having clear titles and instructions to assist and provide clarity on directions. Participants liked being shown the radio / checkboxes to the left of each option as it felt like a preview of what the poll would look like once it was launched.

iterations

Based on user feedback, I adapted my design from a free flow format to a more prescriptive approach.

poll creation format

In the early stages of design, the poll creation used a free flow format, similar to creating a note on iMessage. During testing, users often hesitated at the onset of a new step and asked questions aloud like "Is this it?" or "Is this my poll title?" It was clear that the poll creation process needed to be far more prescriptive. Users asked for a format that felt more like filling out a form as opposed to writing a note.

Early iteration
Final design
Final design
Figure 5: Iterations on poll creation
location of 'settings'

My original design had the settings as a navigation item located in the top left of the screen. During A/B testing, I showed participants two versions of this screen, one with the settings on the top left and one with settings embedded in the poll setup screen. Participants liked seeing all the settings available to them upfront and preferred not having to click inside a button to change these options.

Early iteration
Final design
Final design
Figure 6: Iterations on setting location

final design

My final design follows a form approach and instructs the user in the poll creation process. Users must include a poll title and at least two options. The settings are presented at the bottom of the screen. Once a user launches a poll users are able to vote by tapping the message in the groupchat itself.

Figure 7: Final design

next steps

Users said they would use this feature to...

Here is how these findings were directly translated into feature ideas:

Figure 8: Features for next steps

With more time, I would focus my next round of testing on voting on dates, times, and images.

If I were to continue building this feature, I would focus my next round of design, testing, and iteration on the process of voting on items other than text (images, dates, times) as this was a recurring request during user testing.

reflection

As an Apple enthusiast, it was a pleasure to work with iOS design system and learn more about the design patterns that Apple uses throughout their products. I use iMessage group chats daily so it was enlightening to design for something that I am very familiar with. I found myself thinking of new use cases each time I encountered a group decision via group chats.

All

Mastercard

Filmrise

Polls for iMessage

©Anya Pawar 2024

ResumeLinkedinanya.ap.pawar@gmail.com