Context
WeChat search supports message and media retrieval, yet many middle-aged and older users continue relying on manual scrolling.
Interviews suggested that the barrier was not feature availability, but recognition, navigation confidence, and understanding of search logic.
This project explored how search could become more discoverable while preserving existing interaction patterns.
How might WeChat make search easier to recognise and use for middle-aged and older users without changing its familiar interface patterns?
Research combined qualitative interviews and interface comparison to identify how users recognise, access, and retrieve information within WeChat.
/01 User Interviews
User interviews were conducted with middle-aged and older WeChat users to understand how they currently find past messages, files, images, and links in everyday chat scenarios.
The interviews focused on where users usually start searching, when they choose to scroll manually, and what makes the existing search function difficult to recognise or use.
/02 Comparative Review
The comparison helped identify where WeChat’s search entry points, file categories, and media search paths were less direct or less clearly presented.
/03 Research Insights
Findings from the interviews and interface comparison were summarised into key pain points and user needs. The main issues were low awareness of the search function, long manual scrolling through chat histories, unclear icon meanings, and limited filtering options for locating specific files or media.
Multiple Search Entry Paths
Users can access search either from the main Chats interface or from within a specific conversation, depending on whether they are searching broadly or retrieving content from a known chat context.
Clearer File-Type Filtering
Search categories are surfaced more explicitly during the retrieval process, allowing users to narrow results by file type without navigating through multiple hidden layers.
Media-Based Search Entry
Search actions can also be triggered directly from media content inside a chat, reducing unnecessary navigation and making retrieval behaviour more context-aware.
