Introduction
Snapchat is a video messaging mobile application created for Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown. With this app, the users are able to send timed pictures or short videos to specific contacts or add a story that is visible for all their contact list during 24 hrs. More recently more functionalities have been added to the app like, applying filters, drawing sketches and add text. These “snaps” as the pictures and videos are called are shown during the specified time for the user (from 1 to 10 seconds) and after that time, the snap is deleted from both devices and Snapchat servers.
Since early beginnings, Snapchat has been criticized for its confusing user interface . And even Snapchat creators have made some significant changes in the UI, for some people the UI is still too complicated (especially adult users). The target of the application are teenagers and young adults (13-34) but 71% of the users are under the age of 25 and this can be attributed to the not that intuitive UX.
This user research aim is to evaluate the user experience among a certain range of ages where the users are asked to do basic tasks on the app. This user research will help us to discover if Snapchat user interface is bad designed or it has a reason to be the way it is. Also, having age ranges among the users will help to discover if the app UI is well designed and works well just for younger users, which are the target of the app, and why the adult sector haven’t find the UI easy to use.
Background
Snapchat is a mobile application that can be used for anyone any time during the day, and although the app has a several functionalities such as chat, live video streaming, image messaging and share of stories (pictures and videos that are shared within the contact list contacts that last for 24 hours), the most used functionality is the story sharing.
According to demographics most of Snapchat users are females younger than 25 years old. This users use the app several times during the day to share a moment with their contacts list, this is more likely to happen during the daytime while they are in school or in the nighttime if they are in the working sector.
However, for this research the users will be interacting with the app and trying to complete given tasks in a room without distractions while their interaction with the app is being observed and timed.
These are the three scenarios given to the users in order to help them imagine a situation where they will be applying the tasks they are about to complete:
- You are at school/work, one of your classmates/coworkers is sleeping in his chair, you want to share that moment with your classmates/coworkers so you grab your phone, open Snapchat, take a picture of him, draw a funny sketch over his face, and send it to some of your classmates/coworkers.
- You are in a party where everybody is singing along, you think it’s a lovely moment and you decide to share it and save it on your gallery. You grab your phone, record a video of the moment, add a text, save it on your phone and add the video to your story.
- You are in your room by yourself when you remember that your cousin suggested you to use Snapchat to be in contact and keep updated of each other lives, so, you grab the phone, look for your cousin in your contact list and start a new chat, where you will send him a picture of your latest vacation trip that is in your gallery.
Evaluation approach
In the first part of the evaluation, user tests were conducted to 6 people having 2 of each age group (13-24, 25-35, >35). All of these people have experience using mobile applications for instant messaging, but have not used Snapchat before, so the data won’t be compromised about previous knowledge of the participants.
User Tests
User test participants:
| Name | Fernanda | Lino | Carlos | Jessica | Linda | Lino 2 |
| Sex/Age | Female 15 | Male 19 | Male 26 | Female 25 | Female 50 | Male 55 |
| Instant messaging experience | Expert user | Intermediate user | Novice user | Expert user | Intermediate user | Novice user |
As described in the scenarios, the users will be asked to complete tasks that cover just the basic features of the app, the purpose of this is to retrieve the first impressions of the users on the user interface. The users had to think out loud while completing the tasks in order to provide all the possible information to the evaluator, the time of completion of the task will be recorded as well.
Task list:
- Take a picture, draw a sketch on it, send to some of the contacts.
- Take a video, add some text, save to phone and add to story.
- Start a chat with contact, send an image.
The results of the user tests were the following, in section A of the Appendix the user tests are shown in detail.
| Task performance results | ||||
| Name | Task | # Steps | Time | Completion |
| Fernanda | 1 | 10 | 28.73 sec | 3/3 |
| Lino | 1 | 12 | 1:03.15 min | 3/3 |
| Carlos | 1 | 15 | 42.39 sec | 3/3 |
| Jessica | 1 | 7 | 16.81 sec | 3/3 |
| Linda | 1 | 17 | 1:26.80 min | 3/3 |
| Lino 2 | 1 | 22 | 2:05.39 min | 3/3 |
| Fernanda | 2 | 11 | 49.60 sec | 4/4 |
| Lino | 2 | 11 | 1:09.17 min | 4/4 |
| Carlos | 2 | 12 | 57.52 sec | 3/4 |
| Jessica | 2 | 7 | 45.73 sec | 4/4 |
| Linda | 2 | 18 | 1:51.15 min | 4/4 |
| Lino 2 | 2 | 14 | 1:15.33 min | 0/4 |
| Fernanda | 3 | 14 | 1.04.62 min | 2/2 |
| Lino | 3 | 12 | 56.58 sec | 2/2 |
| Carlos | 3 | 11 | 51.37 sec | 2/2 |
| Jessica | 3 | 9 | 34.28 sec | 2/2 |
| Linda | 3 | 17 | 1:22.24 | 2/2 |
| Lino 2 | 3 | 12 | 1:00.17 min | 2/2 |
Usability Heuristics
In the second part of the evaluation, a heuristic evaluation was made, this heuristic evaluation, instead of being based on the regular Jakob Nielsen’s Heuristics was based on Heuristics for Mobile Computing proposed for E, Bertini from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. According to their research, these heuristics are designed to be appropriate for evaluation in mobiles. In Section B of the Appendix these heuristics are explained.
Mobile Usability Heuristics Evaluation
| # | Heuristic | Usability problems found |
| 1 | Visibility of system status and losability/finability of the mobile device |
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| 2 | Match between the system and real world |
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| 3 | Consistency and mapping |
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| 4 | Good ergonomics and minimalist design |
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| 5 | Ease of input, screen readability and glancability |
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| 6 | Flexibility, efficiency of use and personalization |
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| 7 | Aesthetics, privacy and social conventions |
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| 8 | Realistic error management |
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Findings and design recommendations
Findings
It is shown in the analysis of the users tests that young people interacts in a more comfortable way with the app. The users from the range age (25-35) achieved the three tasks in less time that the youngest group, the oldest group was really behind with the completion of the tasks. This confirms that Snapchat design is not well processed for mature users.
In all the tasks female users score a better time than the male participants, they also show more patience while interacting with the app, they were actually thinking what they were supposed to do while male adults pressed buttons in a more random fashion, this is the reason why in the majority of the tasks females complete them in less number of steps. However, the number of steps is not so different.
During the first task, all users were kind of lost inside the app, asking how could they do something, but this seemed to improve in the two youngest groups for the other tasks. There was a clear confusion from every user when trying to record a video. One of the participants gave up being sure that there wasn’t an option to take a video from inside the app.
Also, users did not show confidence about their location inside the app as they kept swiping through screens in order to go somewhere else. When trying to save a snap/add to history, the majority of the participants seemed to achieve this pressing random buttons. This is a sign of the lack of metaphors in the app that don’t make the icons intuitive.
The usability heuristics restate the problems the participants showed while using the app, it also helped to reveal some other inconsistencies with the good design principles that must be followed in order to create a well designed app. These problems can be minimized as one time having experience with the app, the user gets used to to the UI even though at the beginning does not find it intuitive, but these problems make the users use an app that asks them to recall rather than recognize which augments their cognitive load.
Design Recommendations
Based on the user tests, observations and the usability heuristics the follow list of design recommendations was made.
- Being on the main screen is difficult to recognize your position inside the application map. This can be fixed showing minimalist animated arrows when pressing the screen that show that there are other screens surrounding the main screen. This can show the user the overall position and it can also be helpful to show that there is more than one way to navigate (swiping and icon touch).
- More intuitive icons should replace the existing ones since the current icons show things that are not recognizable, for example, to go to the chat, the icon is a square and a three lines icons conduct to the stories screen, these are definitely not metaphors of real world things.
- There is no clear logical order in the screens, we are getting used to to have the menu on the left side while other functions like the chats are on the right side. In Snapchat the menu is above, and the chat is on the left side. Changing the position of the screens can improve the UX.
- In the chat screen there is an arrow pointing to the left side when actually send you to the right side, this is badly designed and inconsistent. The arrow on the chat screen must be changed to the right side.
- Snapchat has a lot of chat icons, this are not intuitive as only show colors and shapes that represent nothing. These icons must be changed as well. Having just one icon with different colors for each status can help to identify easier the status of each chat.
- The icons for the camera in the main screen and the camera from the chat are different. Buttons on the chat camera should match the ones on the main screen.
- Icons hidden in the stories should be displayed at least once when the screen is in focus.
Conclusions
Snapchat is a very popular popular with now more than 100 millions of downloads, but the 71% of these downloads are from females under 25, on the user tests the reason to have such numbers on the demographics was shown. For young people, using this kind of applications is always fun.
The application has been severely criticized for its bad design and a significant number of articles has been written about mature people not understanding it. The user tests in conjunction with the heuristics allow us to deduce that this lack of sympathy for the app from the adults can be attributed to the poor design of the icons on the app, almost none of the new icons implemented in the app (not navigation icons and those preset universally) are almost unrecognizable at first instance.
Younger people tend to stand and have more patience in terms of mobile applications, they usually have more time to spend on them, but when we talk about adult people, they tend to use less apps in shorter periods of time. Also adults seem to be more comfortable the more metaphors an app implements. This is not the case of Snapchat.
To normal standards Snapchat is not designed completely wrong, but this lack of metaphors and not having clear icons can cause the adults to feel totally out of place. Being called the “app for the young’s” Snapchat is not designed for those born after 1990 but those are the ones that have more time to spend on an app trying every button until they are completely familiarized. On the other hand, this is app is to share important moments of the day in the instant that are happening and mature mobile users don’t tend to share as much content of this type as the younger population.
Even though Snapchat have some design issues, the principal reason the app is not getting adult public is not the UX bad design, the whole app idea and target is meant to be for the younger sector.
References & Bibliography
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Will Oremus, Is Snapchat Really Confusing, or Am I Just Old?, 2015.
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Noah Rayman, This Chart Explains Why You’re Not on Snapchat, 2014.
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Jimena HeVa 