Add Feature : Signal — A Communication App
This project is the third realized during the bootcamp of Ironhack Paris (summer 2021).
It’s the first project that I realized alone. I was a bit stressed about it, but finally I’m happy with the result.
1. Introduction
The Company
Signal exist because of all problems with the security and the users info that are sold. It exist since 2018.
According to Wikipedia :
Signal Messenger LLC was founded in January 10, 2018, simultaneously with the Signal Technology Foundation and operates as its subsidiary. Its CEO is Moxie Marlinspike and it is responsible for the development of the Signal messaging app and the Signal Protocol.
The foundation shares its name with the Signal messaging app.
The Signal Foundation, officially the Signal Technology Foundation, is an American non-profit organization founded in 2018 by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton. Its mission is “to develop open-source privacy technology that protects free expression and enables secure global communication.”
On February 21, 2018, Moxie Marlinspike and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton announced the formation of the Signal Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit organization. The foundation was started with an initial $50 million in funding from Acton, who had left WhatsApp’s parent company, Facebook, in September 2017. The Freedom of the Press Foundation had previously served as the Signal project’s fiscal sponsor and continued to accept donations on behalf of the project while the foundation’s non-profit status was pending.
The initial $50M in funding was a loan, not a donation, from Brian Acton to the new non-profit Signal Technology Foundation. By the end of 2018, the loan had increased to $105,000,400, which is due to be repaid on February 28, 2068. The loan is unsecured and at 0% interest.
2. Empathize
Feature Comparison
First of all, I made a feature comparison with other applications of the same kind as Signal in order to understand if some had similarities and if others had features that no one else uses.
I compare Signal with Whatsapp, Telegram, Messenger, which are mobile app and Wire, Discord, Slack and Discord which are for the computer at first.
We can see that the mobile apps are not allowed their users to modified their messages after they send it.
Competitor Mapping
The competitor mapping is usefull to understand where you want to position your brand.
In the graphic below you can see the red dot which is the current position the Signal app. It is a friendly and allowed people to personalized conversations.
The blue dot is the ideal position I would want for Signal, more friendly and more personalization of the discussion.
Users Interview
I did some user interview to know what was the main issue with the app, and a lot of person tell me that they can’t change their send messages, or can’t see who are they exact persons who saw the messages in a group conversation.
Affinity Map
I put all the information in different catégories, which is called an affinity diagram. Because of that I saw that people want to be able to change their messages after they send it. So I decided to focus on this feature.
User Persona
The user persona is a really usefull tool to stay focus on the user, and to remember for whom we are designing. User first !
In the user persona we need to put information like the name, the age, a little biography. And we put needs and frustrations of the person we created related to the product we are designing.
Here I created Valentin who are a young developer, living in Paris. He likes to be with his friends and family everytime he can. He needs an app in which he could trust, and he wants to be able to wright his tect messages likes he wants. He is frustrated about the number of communication apps there is on the market, and he can’t find all features he loves in one app.
Journey Map
The journey map is a tool that I use to have a better understand of the Valentin’s emotion during a day of using his Signal app.
Emojis helps to have a quick understanding of the situation.
Valentin is a young developer who likes to party and see his friends. Him and his friends have a group conversation on Signal, and they talk to each others everyday. They didn’t see each other for a long time so they want to organize an evening at the restaurant.
- The idea
- 🙂 “I want to organize a party with my friends”
- Valentin wants to organize an evening at restaurant with his friends.
- 😁 “I’m going to suggest them to do a restaurant !”
- He open Signal app, to talk with his group of friend.
2.Want to organize
- He open the group conversation.
- He start to talk to his friend.
- He writes a message proposing them to go out one evening, in a restaurant.
- 😃 “I’m wrighting : Hey ! How are you ? Do you want to do a restaurant ?”
- 🙂 “I’m proposing them a day and an hour”
3.The mistake
- He send the message. He sees that he make a mistake in the date he is proposing.
- 🙁 “F*** ! I made a mistake. I need to edit my message”
- He wants to edit his message.
- He can’t find the “edit” button, and his friends already replied to him.
- 😮 “They have replied really quickly”
- 😐 “ I can’t find the edit button !”
4.Frustration
- 😮 “There is no edit button !”
- He have to explain at his friends that he makes an error.
- He thinks this is a waste of time.
- 😡 “I lost my time, I have to do it all over again and to explain my mistake”
Problem Statement & Hypothesis Statements
Young man need to find a way to correct the message he has already send in this Signal conversation because he prefers to edit his message text than reply to it to correct his mistake.
We believe adding the “edit message” feature for the users of Signal will achieve to users will no longer have to completely retype their message, but simply edit the content they want. We will know we are right when the user will use often the edit fonctionality.
How Might We
How might we make the user feel like they are in control of the messages they send ?
User Flow
Low & Medium Fidelity
To do some usability testing, I did the low fidelity and then the medium fidelity version of the new feature.
Usability Test
After I’ve done some usability test with some differents people, it appears that users can’t really understand that a message have been modify with just a little icon in the corner oh the message, so I decided to change that with the word “edited” instead. The users understand it much better after this change.
Atomic Design
The atomic design is a way to see all the elements of the UI of an app or a website. It is divided in differents categories. Here you can see the “atoms” category, which every elements (icon, text, colors, etc.) separetely. The “molecules” category is composed of atoms which are together to be buttons, or navigation bar or example. And the “organisms” category is molecules together.
High Fidelity
And you can see the result with the high-fidelity.
Next Steps
For the next steps it would be great to highlight words or group of words, with bold or italic option. And to see who read your message in a group conversation, and who didn’t, like Facebook Messenger do.
