Integrating Group Chat Organization on GroupMe

Overview

GroupMe is a free mobile communication app with over 12 million active monthly users and is widely used among college students. Similar to apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, this app is available on both Android and iOS devices. Despite its large user base, many users find the app cluttered and unorganized, lacking useful features. This project aims to address these issues by enhancing the organization and functionality of group chats and DMs, improving the overall user experience on the platform.

TEAM SIZE personal project

TIMELINE 10 weeks

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Current Experience

GroupMe is currently organized by 3-4 tabs: Chats, Discover, Profile, and the optional Campus tab.

The Chats tab features all group chats and DMs that the user is a part of.

The Discover tab permits users to and join trending groups as well as groups created near them if location sharing is permitted.

Like any other app, the Profile tab allows the user to personalize their account and share basic information about themselves, such as their school, year, and major.

The Campus tab is available to anyone who chooses to join their school community. Students can then find campus group chats and classmates through this tab.

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Primary Design Goals

• Make it easier to find relevant groups and DMs within the app

• Only keep necessary and useful features

• Create a more organized and decluttered look

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User Research

I surveyed 13 undergraduate students with a 16-question online survey, asking for general demographic information, as well as people's experience while using certain features of the app. My goal was to understand both what users appreciate about the app and their frustrations and challenges while using it. Here are the key insights I found:

UNUSED FEATURE	TOO MANY GROUP CHATS
75% of users have never used the Discover feature, typically finding relevant group chats through friends, classmates, or their school's course site	62% of users are part of 3-5 active group chats at a time, and the many of these people are in 5+ inactive/unused groups

UNORGANIZED	INACTIVE CHATS
53% of users think GroupMe is only moderately organized, and 23% believe organization is well below average	92% of users are still part of inactive chats, and half of them state they should declutter their chats but it's "too much work"

Standout Responses

If you could add or change one feature in GroupMe, what would it be and why?

“putting group chats and individual chats separately or maybe be able to pin chats”

“perhaps change the format to be neater and more organized, maybe by making it easier to leave inactive groups and declutter”

How do you think the GroupMe experience compares to other communication apps (ex: Discord, Slack, iMessage, etc)?

“I prefer Discord over GroupMe because there's more useful features and group chats are all together, but Discord is also way more complex and can be confusing“

“I think GroupMe is better than iMessage for group chats, but worse for DMs. I also think it's more simple than Discord. I prefer discord simply because of the layout, but the simplicity of GroupMe is great for class and club group chats. I don't like it for DMs though.”

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Personas

Based on the survey responses, I developed three personas to capture the different experiences of college students, which helped showcase the specific challenges students face and how a well-designed communication app can target these challenges.

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Competitive Analysis

	Discord	iMessage	Slack
Pros	organized channels separated group chats & DMs	simple & intuitive interface ability to react/reply to specific messages	professional design allowing for productivity & professional communication efficient channel organization for different topics and projects
Cons	complex interface less suitable for purely academic use	missing advanced functionalities like channels limited functionality with other operating systems (i.e., Android) not suitable for large group communication	more complex and steeper learning curve than other apps less emphasis on social and community-building features

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Feature Solutions for Problem Spaces

After conducting user research and a detailed analysis of similar communication apps, I found that the biggest problem areas are its organization, lack of a neat and clean appearance, and an unbeneficial feature. Here are the solutions I found:

• Organization: Group Chats and DMs are separated in 2 different tabs for better organization

  • Based on the user research results, many users stated that they liked this feature in apps like discord

    
    

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• Grouping: this feature allows users to group their chats into “grouped chats” (i.e., by semester) for a cleaner look

  • Users can then easily leave all of the chats within one group all at once (i.e., at the end of the semester) by pressing and holding on the grouped chats' icon to declutter and avoid staying in inactive chats

    
    

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• Removal of Unused Feature: the Discover feature was removed as the user research results show that users rarely use the discover feature

  • Users state they only use GroupMe to join class group chats and typically find these groups through friends and classmates, not the Discover feature
    

• Chat Interaction: users appreciate the ability to react/reply to specific chats in other messaging apps, so these features were kept

  
  

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Visual Design

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Explore the Final Prototype

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Takeaways

Matching Existing App's Aesthetics As this was my first experience with Figma, I learned it takes practice to replicate an app's exact format, color scheme, and font and text style.

Necessary Changes Only Any changes to the app must be beneficial and justified. It's tempting to let personal bias influence design choices, but user research must support ideas.

Always Keep User in Mind As much as we may want to add to or change a lot of the app features and aesthetics, familiarity is also important and too many changes may do more harm than good.

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Things I Would Have Done Differently

Larger Pool for User Research Reaching a larger and more diverse group of people would have captured a wider range of behaviors, needs, and preferences and allowed for better generalizability.

Added Channels Many users mentioned in the survey that they enjoy the Discord experience due to organized channels, and this could have been a useful feature to add to GroupMe (ex. different channel for general questions, homework help, study groups, etc. to avoid excessive spamming in one chat).

User Testing Unfortunately, I was unable to conduct user testing before the final prototype due to time constraints, but I recognize that it is a valuable step in the design process.