Messaging features for Doodle apps (mobile/web)

“As a poll organiser I want to send messages to my invitees and participants over the Doodle messaging system to communicate about the event and/or remind them to participate.”

Background & problem statement

Doodle web got redesigned and not all features were implemented from the old version (classic Doodle) to the new version for web. Also the feature was never built on the native apps for both iOS/Android and needed to be implemented. Quantitative data showed that 0.9% of users where sending reminders and/or messages with the old platform on the web. Qualitative data showed that there was a high demand for a “reminder feature” in the new version.

Research showed that a lot of users spend many back and forth emails chasing invitees who did not participate to a poll, writing individual emails or calls depending on the the context of use. We had to implement a feature easier to use and discover than in Doodle classic, to interact through messaging with invitees and/or participants of the polls for both web and the native apps. We made the hypotheses that it will have a positive impact on the business side and increase user engagement as more invitees will participate to polls and will have an impact on the amount of polls created.

Team

The structure of the team was Agile with dual track methodology limited in time with a 2 weeks sprint for mobile and 3 weeks for web.

Mobile team:

• 1 Product manager

• 1 Product designer (me)

• 1 iOS dev

• 1 Android dev

Process

• Brainstorming sessions and explorative workshop

We started exploring a various ideas how this new feature could work in the current implementation that would help us achieve our goals and simplify the experience. We researched different approaches used by competitors and other web products, and also explored more innovative ways of approaching this feature.

• 1st design iteration

1. On the poll page, one more option named “Send message” with envelope shaped icon, has been added to the bottom menu.

2. It opens a pop-up window where there are 3 options, “Message Guests”, “Remind Invitees” and “Cancel”.

3. When choosing to send a reminder to invitees, it opens a new window with pre-filled emails from invitees and pre-filled message.

4. Once the reminder sent, there is a green success banner on the top of the poll page.

The second flow of interactions is accessed through the table view. The entry point is in the navigation of the screen this time.

• Usability test

A usability test was organised to test the first hypotheses and research questions. As this feature is Premium, it was important to recruit professionals scheduling meetings on a regular basis ideally with Doodle. We recruited 4 testers and built 2 prototypes, one for web and one for iOS with Invision.

Research questions:

• Users want to send reminders.

• When sending the reminder, is it clear for users what the dropdown options are?

• Many organisers send a poll through the link, however to be able to send a reminder, organisers will have to invite participants using emails. If an organisers invites participants with the Doodle link or other channels like Whatsapp, is it clear that it is not possible to send reminders from the app?

• Organisers expect Doodle automatically send system reminders to invitees.

• Organisers want to set up manual reminder when they realise too little people participated.

• Organisers want to be able to send a message when inviting participants.

• Organisers want to be able to send a message when the final date is selected.

• Results presentation and explorative meeting

After each usability test session, there is a quick debrief with the person taking notes as I am the one leading the interview. Then I prepare a presentation, going through each of the research questions and highlighting the main issues encountered. After that, I invite the team (PMs, Devs, Designers) and present the results. It is also the occasion to already talk about possible solution according to the results. It is valuable to have everyone input at that stage.

• Users don’t make the distinction between messages and reminders. When being asked to send a reminder, they clicked on message option and the other way around. It was verified both for web and mobile.

• They felt stressed when they thought they had to fill out all the emails. Showing an affordance to make them aware of the feature would make sense.