Contxet
WeChat is the most popular instant messaging app in mainland China and is popular in many Mandarin-speaking regions globally.
However, despite its popularity, it overlooks some basic intuitiveness and usability in its search function – one of the most frequently used features in users' daily routines.
This drawback particularly affects the middle aged and older adults, who often scroll through chat history for a long time to find specific pieces of information. Many of them have no idea what 'search function' is, and there's no instruction leading them to get familiar with it.
How might I rebuild the logic of the search function to cater to the usability improvements needed for middle-aged and older users, while also maintaining the uniformity and simplicity of the app’s interface?
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First, I conducted several interviews with my elders and the elders of my friends to obtain qualitative responses, in order to understand the targeted user group’s needs and opinions regarding this function;
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Second, I conducted a competitor analysis between WeChat and another globally popular instant messaging app, Telegram, to analyse the current features of WeChat’s search function and better understand what needs improvement in the user experience;
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Lastly, I identified the pain points of this function and the users’ needs to serve as the foundation for the redesign.
Users who want to use the search function on WeChat can access it from the home page (Chats page) or select a chat to search for files transferred within that chat.
The options for file types are clearer. Whether users access the search function from the home page or a chat, they can directly choose the file type as a filter.
Users can access this function from any media file in a chat.
