WhatsApp Poll

1 Day Design Sprint

Introduction

In our lives we encounter many situations where we are in a group and we have to make a decision out of some points. To select 1 or 2 points among many given choices is a difficult task when you are a group. One of the best way to do so is “Polling”.

We encounter such polls in our general day to day life, whether to decide picnic spot or planning meeting etc. So, if we can integrate this method in one of our daily routine applications this can ease out things at a very basic level.

So, for such purpose the best possible idea is to integrate it with “WhatsApp”. As the population using WhatsApp is 1.5 Billion as of December 2017 and out of them 58% are using several times on a daily basis. The platform this big would be affecting a huge user base so the utility of polling feature can be huge.
( Stats Source : https://www.statista.com/topics/2018/whatsapp/)

My Role

Validation and analysis of the problem, development of best suited process to find the solution,Showing the most appropriate solution on the basis of research, developing prototype of the feature (which includes wireframing + visual interface).

Project Timeline : 01 Day

Objective

1. To study the user base to justify and improvise the usability of the feature.
2. Taking “Use cases” as well as “Edge cases” to make sure every aspect of the topic is covered.
3. Defining issues or problems in the feature to be solved before integrating with the app.
4. Finalizing the features to be given in the polling option.
5. Making sketches and wireframes for the solution suggested.
6. Integrating the feature with the parent app.

Define Target Audience

I defined the sections of the users involved in WhatsApp.
1. Students
2. Professional/Office workers
3. Secretary or leader of a group
4. Housewives

These sections represent most of the user base. But there are some edge case user base.
5. Political Groups
6. Anti-Nationalist Groups
7. Terrorist Groups

We cannot neglect these type of users, these new facilities may be useful for them too, which in return can be harmful for the society.

So, I developed the case that new and efficient features are very good to be included but those should also be made to add value to the society.

And, the recent addition to the community is:
8. Businesses (like MakeMyTrip & BookMyShow)
Which uses WhatsApp as a medium for promotion as well as service providing.

Process and Approach

Self-Defining the points to think over

Started by Heuristic Approach and thought of points I should consider to be involved in the feature. After giving this a thought I came up with certain points

a). Who will have the authority to create a poll?
b). Can a I select multiple options?
c). Can I change my response once selected?
d). Should my response be visible to other members of the group?
e). How long will the poll last?
f). Should there be real time track of results or they should be posted at last?
g). What about notifying me about the opening and ending of poll?
h). Previous poll summary?
All these points gave the initial idea to approach towards the solution.

User Analysis : Qualitative approach

Thinking of the user base of WhatsApp which is around 1.5 Billion and also time constraints of the research, user research methodology can change in a lot different manner. The user research in “Quantitative Analysis” would be very less effective as in such short spam diversified analysis would not be possible. We could be analysing only a small diversity of users and reporting results for them only, which would a very bad practice.

So, I took “Qualitative Approach” in my user study and targeted 1 or 2 users which can represent their type of people in diversity. Point to be noted here is that the user here is a group of people not a single person. So personas should be made for group only, and the person selected should be well enough to represent a group.

Based on my initial defined questions I created a questionnaire which allowed me to interact with the group representative and to integrate his/her valuable points in the feature. See Research in detail...

Selecting people to represent the sections of the WhatsApp community so that we can start with the user reseach.

Due to unavailability of edge case users and time the research was limited to majorly use case users only. Assumptions were taken for the edge case users to include their points also.
Now I started discussion with all of these users and tried to make them think as a group and then noted down answers to my each and every question. See Research in detail...

Inference : Feature Deciding

1. Mainly the user base is having around 10 groups in which 90% of them are informal types.

2. People mostly don't actively take part in all the groups but do involve when a excitement factor is there or they are being mentioned.

3. Polls will be very small scale and involvement of people can be increased by small attention.

4. Mostly user have used polls because they use facebook also

5. Anyone can create a poll, everyone is important in a group.

6. Mostly informal topics to be discussed over

7. Looking to all points there should be a feature to decide the type of group it is. That is business, family, etc. so that in formal groups we should not give changing option as there decisions should be taken by taking time and thinking more so option should be chosen once. But in general case of informal groups changing views is a human tendency and it should be there in feature.

8. At last motive of the poll was to take out result only so results should be shown at last but only manually written because sometimes inference is not that direct.

9. The faces of people should not be seen upfront but after a click who has voted should be there. This will decrease the chances of influence. But if anyone wants to see he/she can click. Also it can encourage other people to vote in the poll, which is a good option.

10. Views of the members of the group matters a lot and thus adding option should be given with a check or moderation that admin/creator can delete the response added if not valuable. But still only max of 15 poll options will be there not more than that. Otherwise very much confusion.

11. Generally time needed for most of the use cases are 4-5 hrs max. so we can put 4 hrs limit to the poll feature, which will include maximum of the users. But the admin or poll creator can lock the poll votes if they think so.

12. It should contain notification of poll to remind people. Also poll could be answered from notification panel in mobile, to ease the experience.

13. The use of camera feature is very rare but the use of poll would be even more rare so showing upfront would not be useful. In the attach column the payment icon can be replaced by poll (only in group chat) as no one pays to the group hence no use of it there.

14. There should be a feature to see the previous polls of the group.

Visual Designing

Basic Wireframes

User Interface

Special Cases, thoughts and features

Going through all the features and user studies, I came across many different type of cases which would not be discussed in general study of user.

The Edge case users include

1. Businesses

Some businesses like Make My Trip and Bookmyshow use whatsapp for the promotional and service providing purposes. They may need poll option to take survey from the users.

In those cases the time limit for the survey should be a feature where they can expand their time. This type of feature may be a paid version in “WhatsApp Business” app.

2. Anti-Terrorism and Anti-nationalist

These type of people may use whatsapp polling feature to harm the society. Like they may create poll in their groups : Which leader to kill or which city to attack? Such cases must be seen and solved.

The solution I can propose is using Artificial Intelligence to understand such critical statements and do not let them post such stuff on their groups.

3. Cases involving polling for serious issues like Suicide

There may be cases where people may post dark things like how to commit suicide or how to become thief and all such things which are again harmful for the society.

Again the solution is AI. Which can respond to the user in positive manner and try to help them in some way just like google search do when someone types “I want to suicide”.

The discussed last 2 things are some of the very less thought edge cases which can be very helpful in improving the society to a large extent as the user base is very large.

Facebook’s User Behaviour data can be useful to the whatsapp to build the AI needed in this feature.

With AI we can eliminate many points that are some pain ponts:

1. Options added should not be similar to previous ones.
2. With improved learning AI can suggest the type of options poll should have just like google forms have.
3. Above discussed social issues.

There are some drawbacks of AI

1. It is very hectic work to integrate with the whatsapp as due to end to end encryption it will not be on online web but on the device itself which is very tough task.
2. Whatsapp comes in 60 languages and to evolve AI to that extent is very tough task too.
3. People may try to use content in such way that it is not clearly understandable to software but that is harmful for the people.

Summarizing

The WhatsApp polling feature is a very unique and effective idea for most of the sections of the users. Long chats and vague polls can be sorted in a nice way. But there are some disadvantages also that can be minimized by using adequate technologies.

These type of polling are there in many of the places but the check on these surveys are not there. The advancement in technologies and educating the user is the best way to overcome such points. Sometimes it's not only about earning money or giving ease of experience to the users, but also adding value to the society.