The project acts as a Design Project for my 4th Semester in which I explored a new way of Creating Forms/Surveys and making them more Accessible and Usable.
The idea for this project struck me while I was building a survey form for another research project.
I wanted to check the responses on my smartphone and I was a bit disappointed to notice that neither Google Forms nor Typeform has a Mobile application. I was forced to open and check the responses on a browser, whose experience was a total hassle for me.
Hence, I decided to explore if the same problem is experienced by others or not and took it up as a project to Research, understand and build a solution to provide a better experience of forms on a smartphone.
I took a bit different approach in this project. According to the needs of the project, I manipulated and developed my own approach of how to proceed.
Without even planning anything, I scribbled a bit in my diary and started with Basic Research to gather what the population thinks of forms and how they use them.
As a designer, my role was to empathize with the users, identify the way they use forms and finally propose a more accessible solution to promote inclusivity.
For this, I began by sending out a survey to gather some Quantitative Data from the users. The following shows the results of the Survey.
Note: The survey was sent to the people of the age group 18–24 only.
The results clearly showed that people come across Forms/Survey very often.
It was also revealed that most of the forms were used for Project Research purposes among the age group of 18–24.
Feedback, Webinar Registrations followed respectively.
It was very evident through the survey that people usually share and come across forms on WhatsApp.
Clearly, the people using Forms on Laptop/PC & Smartphone was comparable and either of them could not be ignored while developing the solution.
This further paved a way for me to sample the users and move towards an In-depth research.
Through Basic Research, I got to know about the different types of Users which helped me Sample the Users for further In-depth Research.
I used a Non-Probability Method of sampling i.e. Quota Sampling to decide the Sample Size for further Research.
Quota Sampling : The population is divided into subgroups based on certain parameters and samples are selected from each subgroup as per the desired proportions (quota) pre-determined by the researcher.
Sampling the users gave me an audience to further continue with Qualitative research which included User Interviews, User Stories, Analyzing user Flows, etc.
I conducted In-depth Interviews with the users using a set of questionnaire to understand their decisions and experience with forms they come across/use the most.
Objective: To gather Qualitative data about the usage and experience of Forms/Surveys by users.
Platform: Google Meet
All the interviews were analysed again to get a deeper understanding of their mental model and psychology. The following shows some of the major observations I concluded.
On being asked why they use google forms the most -
On being asked why they mostly use WhatsApp for sharing forms -
I further analysed why users use the device they use and how did they get used to it.
I also gathered some of the interesting quotes the users exclaimed during the interviews as User Stories
“A personal request or greeting matters a lot”
“Knowing the no. of questions first hand will influence my decision of filling a form”
“Working on Laptop/PC gives a feel of seriousness and focus”
“Typing more would demotivate me to fill the form”
“A suitable environment has been made on WhatsApp for these regular needs”
“An on-the-go availability is required which a smartphone provides”
“Knowing the context of the form is very important”
“There’s not much creative freedom in google forms”
Further, I analysed the existing User Flows of both, Laptop/PC Users and Smartphone Users while Sharing the form & Checking the responses to get a deeper insight into the decisions they make.
Note: The following User Flows are made with respect to the information I collected through In-depth Interviews to depict the flow of an ideal user. Actual Flow may vary from person to person.
It was observed that the users don’t usually use the same device to check responses as they do to make the form.
After all the Research, insights were generated based on the Observations & my personal Knowledge to club the research and move towards building a solution.
During the research, it was observed that there are certain factors that decide whether a person will fill out a form or not.
To simplify it, I deduced a 3-P Principle, which states the factors that will motivate or demotivate a Person to fill the form.
3-P stands for :
The population has developed habits.
Many people are used to making forms on the Web, and others are comfortable using Mobile for the same. And, these habits cannot be changed easily even if there were a better solution for building forms.
People will continue using the Web as they get a sense of Seriousness while working on the laptop. Others will continue using Mobile as they prefer on-the-go availability more.
Hence, it's much better to design for both the stakeholders rather than one to cater to the needs of all the users and provide a better experience for the same.
For Ideating different solutions possible, I tried the How Might We Method to explore and analyse the Pros and Con’s of the solution.
After analyzing the Pro’s and Con’s of each of the above solutions, the 3rd one seemed to be the most effective.
After an intensive Ideation session, the best solution figured out was simply to add a feature of Forms in WhatsApp which lets users create, share and check responses on WhatsApp as well as on WhatsApp Web.
Firstly, I created a User Persona to club all the needs of a User and design accordingly.
I started by building the User flow of the solution in order to visualize how a user will go about creating, sharing, filling and Analyzing the form.
I further made some Low-fidelity Wireframes to pave the way for High-fidelity Wireframes and Ultimately the final User Interface.
I further created a wire flow to better depict how the user will use WhatsApp Forms.
Note: The same Wireflow will also be followed by the web version of WhatsApp Forms.
The Final User Interface was designed to provide people with a better experience of Building, Sharing & Checking Form Responses.
Also, the whole UI was designed keeping in mind the design guidelines of WhatsApp to maintain consistency.
The WhatsApp Forms option has been added in the menu bar (dropdown) to quickly access the same which increases accessibility and decreases taps.
The WhatsApp Forms Home Screen includes 2 parts:
WhatsApp Forms comes with its own navigation bar, to Create, Share and Check Responses of the Forms.
Further, The create section allows users to add a Title and Description of the form to inculcate trust and then build various types of questions.
WhatsApp Forms can be shared by a link as well as other platforms which increases its range of users.
The Responses section is further divided into 3 parts for a clear view of all the responses.
I. Insights Section — The Insights section displays some quantitative outputs of the form.
II. Summary Section
The summary section allows exporting all the responses in the form of a Google Sheet. And further shows a summary of all the responses through infographics.
III. Individual
This section shows the individual responses of the users.
The form Filling screens are carefully designed to convey all the necessary information to the person filling the form. It solves the problem of Person and Purpose mentioned in the 3-P Principle.
The screen clearly mentions the Author and Purpose of the form at the very beginning.
Here’s a working prototype of WhatsApp Forms. Do give it a try!
The project gave me an opportunity to conduct various In-depth Interviews and perform detailed User Research.
Further, I’m currently testing the prototype for feedbacks and improvements and will add the data here soon :)
Update: Impact of WhatsApp Forms
It has been over a year of the WhatsApp Forms case study and I’m glad to see the interest of users for using the same. I received 25+ emails from all around the world exclaiming how this small addition to WhatsApp can be extremely helpful for their businesses. Below is a glimpse of the same.
Thank you for reading :D
If you liked my work, you can connect with me on LinkedIn or reach out to me at nipun.cps@gmail.com
Nipun Sharma
UX Design Student at Delhi Technological University