Ping Portfolio

SNAPCHAT

USABILITY TESTING & REDESIGN

Easy to start. Efficient to master.

SNAPCHAT

USABILITY TESTING & REDESIGN

Easy to start. Efficient to master.

SNAPCHAT

USABILITY TESTING

& REDESIGN

Easy to start. Efficient to master.

My Role

Led UX/UI design

UX researcher

Prototyper

Motion Designer

Skills Involved

User Research

Usability Testing

Prototyping

My Team

Dawna Zhang

Yiping Lin

Xuanzi Cao

Duration

10 weeks

The Challenge

Fragmented Conversations

& Limited Guidance

The Problem

Snapchat’s chat interface mixes multiple content types without clear hierarchy and provides limited onboarding, reducing clarity, usability, and increasing interaction errors.

our goals

Validate interaction complexity, cluttered information display, and learning barriers by gathering insights from new users (onboarding, learnability) and experienced users (efficiency, satisfaction).

Objectives of the Usability Testing

For Users

Retain existing users by enhancing their overall experience while attracting new users to join the platform.

Focus on improving the Chat features to strengthen engagement and user retention.

For Business

Drive sustainable revenue growth by increasing Snapchat+ subscriptions and improving user conversion rates.

Expand the user base and strengthen advertising and brand partnership opportunities.

Participant Recruitment Plan

Participant Breakdown by Age Group & Experience Level

We planed to recruit 16 participants representing a balanced mix of genders, age groups, and technology experience levels to ensure diverse perspectives. The group will include both novice and experienced users of mobile communication platforms, allowing us to observe distinct patterns in behavior, expectations, and challenges for a more complete understanding of user interaction.

Participant Recruitment Plan

Recruitment Strategy

We adopted a clear and friendly recruitment approach to attract participants who represent our target audience. A screening process will be conducted through a Google Form shared via digital link and QR code to ensure participants fit our criteria. This balanced composition allows us to gather diverse insights across different experience levels for a more comprehensive usability evaluation.

Testing Process & Metrics

Methodology

Quantitative Data

Task completion rate

Task completion time (per task)

Error encountered

Quiz success rate

System usability score

Qualitative Data

Screening form responses

Verbalization & Behavior

Post-task interview responses

Observed user frustrations and quick fixes

Study Process

Screening

Task Performance

Post-Test Questions

Quiz (Icon recognition)

SUS Questionnaire

Task Description

Task Tested

Data Analysis

Quantitative data

task completion time

On average, new users spent 43 seconds longer per task than experienced users.

Task click error counted

In task3, new users made 22 more click errors than experienced users. From here, everything makes sense.

Task Completion Rate

While the completion rate was high, many users, especially new users, completed tasks through indirect paths.

System Usability Scale (SUS)

New users rated Snapchat 43.44, which falls into not acceptable.

Key Insights

Issues to solve

Message List View

Multiple gestures (long-press, swipe) live in the same small area, each triggering a different action

No clear visual distinction between actions, causing hesitation and misclicks for first-time users

Chat Screen

Actions like "Save," "Reply," and "Forward" only appear after long-press or swipe, hidden from view by default

Icons lack text labels, making their function unclear

Lack of Onboarding

Minimal in-app guidance for gesture-based interactions

Users can't easily tell if a message has been saved, or how to reply with a Snap

Lack of UI Cues (Messaging List)

Unclear distinction between message states (sent vs. unsent, opened vs. unopened)

Media type icons (photo, video, text) are hard to tell apart at a glance

Overall Impact

Gesture-heavy design reduces intuitiveness compared to other messaging apps

Increases cognitive load and lowers user confidence during everyday use

What I learned from this project

Reflection

Measuring Learning, Not Just Performance

Looking back, we should have included icon recognition in both the pre- and post-test. Without it, we couldn’t clearly capture users’ initial understanding or see how much they learned after completing the tasks. This was a missed opportunity in our testing setup and a clear takeaway for improving future studies.

Tiered Tasks by User Expertise

In retrospect, our tasks were too basic for experienced Snapchat users, who finished them almost instantly. This meant we focused more on if users could complete tasks, rather than how they did them, limiting deeper insights. Introducing a “Same Tasks, Tiered Difficulty” approach earlier would have helped us capture a wider range of behaviors and better understand both beginners’ discoverability issues and experienced users’ efficiency needs.

Testing in Context, Not in Isolation

Adding realistic scenarios to our usability tasks helped surface deeper insights into how users handle multi-step actions, priorities, and real-world feature use. However, our post-test quiz focused too much on isolated icon recognition, measuring memorization rather than understanding. In hindsight, embedding the same real-life context into quiz questions would have better captured how users interpret system cues and decide what to do next.

Pilot Testing Prevents Bigger Problems

Running a pilot test helped us catch unclear instructions, technical issues, and timing problems before full testing. In addition, it's better to highlight the issue prediction in the script so the team can check whether the process is smooth and complete during the pilot testing.

redesign 1

Friends List Page:

Improving Message Access & Interaction

before

after

Added a Snap Message Preview

Users can quickly view all Snaps without relying on complex gestures.

Refined Timestamp System

Improved Message Indicators and Visual Clarity

Added unread message counts and explicit media labels (e.g., “Sticker,” “Snap,” “Chat”).

redesign 2

Chat Interface:

Simplified Gestures & Clearer Controls

Added a Save Message Button

Clear color-coding makes saved states instantly recognizable, while a separate button placement helps reduce accidental taps.

Optimize Voice Message Controls

before

after

redesign 3

make disappearing message rules clear & easy to manage

Disappearing message Notification

New user can get a notifiaction of the disappearing message when they first use chat function.

User can use“Setting” to change how long they want to keep all messages in chat, such as “After Viewing”,”24 Hours after Viewing”,”7 Days after Viewing”, or”Never”.

Visible Timer

User can see the “Setting”/”Set time” under their friends name.

A “Timer” next to the time of each message.

redesign 4

Introduce a “permanent Message” Mode for Important Conversations

Enable or Disable Permanent Messages

Turn Permanent Messages on or off to keep all messages indefinitely, with both users notified of any changes.

Auto-Saved Messages Indicator

In Permanent Mode, the Save button turns yellow to show messages stay in the chat.

Toggle Permanent Message Mode

Use the “Add” button to switch Permanent Messages on or off.

Swipe Up to Open

Toolbar Entry to Open

redesign 5

Introduce Interactive Onboarding

with Short Animations or Gesture Tutorials

Message Access Shortcut

Message Reopening

Quick Search

The tutorial teaches quick, gesture-based search using simple swipes and taps.

Turn Off Anytime

Users can turn off the tutorial anytime for full control while still navigating the chat confidently.

Quick Access: Swipe Right to Chat

A simple gesture that makes navigation faster and easier to learn.

Solution Overview

Simplify the learning process. Boost engagement.

To improve the user experience, we made messaging, snaps, and videos more organized, discoverable, and easier to manage while introducing guided onboarding to help new users navigate the interface with confidence.