Company: Whisper
Role: Senior UX/UI Designer
Role: Senior UX/UI Designer
Following the successful major update to our iOS app, I completely redesigned Whisper's Android build in respect to its native platform—not only completely refreshing the UI, but issuing the biggest update to our Android app since Whisper's launch in 2012.
This major redesign added categories, worldwide search filters, and the ability to filter by mile radius. I designed the new user interface and experience in one week to satisfy the needs of an expedited timeline.
Introduction
Whisper is an anonymous social network that connects people through shared experiences. This Sequoia Capital backed startup currently connects over 250 million users through iOS, Android, and Web distributed content.
Challenges
The Android app build suffered from usability issues including poor discoverability. The outdated design was neglected and suffered from a lot of technical debt.
Our iOS app introduced new features that had to be integrated in the Android build. I needed to create a custom design native to Android that matched the functionality of the iOS app and have seamless integrations across the various versions of Android devices.
The Android product manager and lead developer was scheduled to head to China in one week to lead a special project for Whisper's localization efforts. The pressures of time meant I had to work quickly.
Goals
My goals were to create a custom design native to Android that matched the functionality of the iOS app and to have seamless integrations across the diverse myriad of Android devices.
My Role
While some features were borrowed from the iOS app to maintain consistency, I had to redesign a great deal of the interactions and navigation to better serve the current aesthetic and idiosyncrasies of the Android platform.
I designed for all stages of the interaction within the build and some of those changes were released in stages given the development timeline. Our fast turnaround cycle meant I had to prioritize certain features and implementations.
Result
The Android redesign was a success, launching on time and integrating well.
Several of my strategic design recommendations like making the share button more prominent in the single whisper browser view and coupling it with the 'share' text, skyrocketed shares within the build upon release by 500x.
Whisper Stories
I also worked on Whisper's web presence, redesigning the entire website and adding features like stories of algorithmically generated content. I decreased the bounce rate on Whisper's web platform from over 80% to less than 20%.
This was one of the early concept explorations I designed for Whisper's new online stories feature:
I contributed to an increase of 4.5 billion page views per month,
over a million app opens per hour,
and 10 million monthly active users.
