Alex Kim
WorkAbout
How many text messages did you send and receive today?
Text message alerts ring on our cell phones every once in a while. Our chat continues all day long. Text messages now constitute the largest part of our communication. If the text message is ambiguous, it is difficult to convey its meaning properly. Also, it is easy to have conversations that are off-topic.

The Slide app helps people communicate clearly through text messages and prevents wasting time with unnecessary chatting.
THE PROBLEM
Text message is an essential medium that people can use to communicate with others. But people might misunderstand and waste time easily through unclear and unnecessary chats in texting.
VALUE PROPOSITION
How might we help people to communicate clearly and effectively in texting?
Text messages are the most common way of communication. In order to convey the purpose well, one must organize one's thoughts well and write them down. If the content is unclear, it is more difficult to convey the intention to the other party. If misinterpreted, there is an inconvenience of having to explain it over and over again.

Slide is a chat app that provides an efficient communication experience by helping users identify and stay focused on the conversation topic.
THE SOLUTION
Introducing "Slide"
Subject line design clearly reveals the purpose of the conversation and posting comments as a response to the headline, prevents off-topic conversations.
Mission
To help people communicate with people concisely and effectively in texting.
Product goals
01
To deliver clear and concise message
02
To avoid unnecessary chats
03
To add a note in the calendar seamlessly
Subject line
Deliver a text message using a subject line that shows the purpose of the conversation.
Fix the subject line
Fix the subject line so it remains on the top of the screen and doesn’t disappear when you’re scrolling.
Quick view
Check the latest response and post a reaction quickly. 
Calendar
Add an appointment from your text message to your Slide calendar. 
Reminder
Notification helps user to remind the schedule in the calendar so that user can check the schedule easily.
Status notification
Inform your contacts about your status.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
Understanding Problems
Secondary research or desk research is a research method that involves previously published data. Existing data is summarized and collated to discover emerging patterns of research. I organized online and offline data from internet journal articles, fact books, and thesis essays. I categorized similar documentations, studies, and existing use cases about inclusive solutions.

In 2019, U.S. adults spent an average of 20 minutes per day with mobile messaging apps. This engagement is projected to increase to 24 daily minutes in 2020, which is in part related to the coronavirus pandemic. Mobile messaging apps are a popular way to stay in touch with friends and family during quarantine measures that have been enacted all over the United States.
Time consuming
Messaging is the #1 reported use of smartphones. 70% of smartphone owners say messaging is one of the top 5 uses of their device. That’s at least 13% higher than any other feature. Text messaging is the most frequently used smartphone feature.
How does text messaging compare to other smartphone features?
SMS makes up 85% of total mobile messaging. Texting makes up 33% of Millennials’ mobile usage. In general, women spend more time texting than men.
Misunderstanding
Text messaging is convenient and is the preferred communication medium for many. However, text messages are impersonal and present high-risk opportunities for misinterpretations. They lack voice tone and inflection. And they’re limited to 130 characters, often robbing the sender of the words needed to clearly communicate their message. Because of this, text messages take the context out of the conversation and leave your messages subject to the interpretations of your recipients.

Behavioral experts say that most arguments begin with misunderstandings. Some experts say 90%. Most texters can cite at least one misinterpreted text experience of their own. In some cases relationships are damaged. Phone calls and face-to-face conversations are often needed to straighten out the misunderstanding.
PRIMARY RESEARCH
Interview Questionnaires
01
To understand how people thinks of communication.
1. What do you think of the most important thing when you’re communicating with others?
2. What’s the toughest thing in communication ?
3. Have you ever thought about the ways or ideas to have better communication with others?
02
To understand people’s preference of methods of communication.
1. Which tool or way do you often use for communicating?
2. What’s your favorite tool or way to communicate ?
03
To understand people’s behavior in texting.
1. What’s the pros and cons of texting?
2. Do you have anything that you should be caring about when you’re texting with someone?
3. Have you ever had any particular experiences with texting?
4. Have you ever been the moment where you misunderstood with the message you received? What facts made you misunderstand?
5. If so, how did you resolve them?
Meet the user
The main participants are millennials and generation Z who are heavy users for social media and message apps aged between 19 to 34. Ideally, 8 interviewees participated in the first user interviews on August 7, 2020, and August 8, 2020. These user interview sessions took about 15 to 30 minutes to complete via Zoom and Google forms.
User interview
User quotes
"I try to convey my opinion as much as possible without misunderstanding. Abbreviations are not used in important content."
"I explain the purpose of the conversation in a straightforward way."
"Relatively unable to explain in detail, there are situations in which my intention is not accurately explained or misunderstood to the other person."
"Texting apps have too much information and multi-party communication, so my opinions are often not delivered."
Synthesizing the results
Synthesize the user feedback
Group them into key themes
Key learnings
Unnecessary text
People spend more time on unnecessary conversations than the purpose of the chat.
Extra effort
To prevent misunderstandings, people used to pay a lot of attention to emojis, photos, and other things that can be supplemented.
Preference
People prefer simple and clear conversations.
Too many messaging apps
People use too many tools as a messaging app at the same time, such as email, collaboration apps, text messaging apps.
FRAMING OF SOLUTION
With the insights and research gathered, I began the design process.
Scoping a minimal viable product
Workflows that would enable me to test my hypotheses
I explored a few original workflows for user stories based on the problems we found. We tried to pare it down to the most essential workflows for an MVP.
Proof of Concept
Building the wireframe
I designed the wireframes based on a series of user testing and key learning goals.
Hi-Fi wireframe
Message
Is it usable to post and add a comment intuitively as a messaging app?
User posts a message and writes a comment instead of sending a bubble in texting app. It’s a simple solution that I applied the user interface pattern which is used for social media. Because I think it helps user to focus on the topic in a chat and prevent waste time spending with unnecessary messages.
My design decision
Final design
Fixed headline position
Is the screen size of headline enough to read comments when it's fixed?
People are likely to miss the topic of chat while chatting. The number of messages would increase by texting back and forth. Users can set the headline fixed on the screen that users always could read the topic easily in a chat.
My design decision
Final design
Add to calendar
Can users save an event into my calendar from message seamlessly?.
User doesn’t need to make a plan or schedule in other calendar or schedule app. Users can save the facts that they’d like to save and memorize using the calendar with this app.
My design decision
Final design
Quick view
Can users notice the buttons that have a haptic touch for a quick view?
I used outline and colored icon for designing the buttons that has a haptic touch to differentiate with CTA button which is designed without outline and filled in color.
Button variation
Final design