1

I've created a "poke" functionality for a social networking web app I maintain. I need help in presenting this feature to my users in the most intuitive way possible.

How it works:

A user can poke another user. The pokee can reply via poking back. A pair of users can keep on poking each other for as long as they want.

Every poke has privacy settings. I.e. a user can also poke someone anonymously. I.e. anonymized notifications are generated. Poke privacy isn't an arbitrary feature; it's based on user feedback and behaviour.

Moreover, once A has poked B, and B has poked A back, I allow this pair of users to create a private chat room which has its own special features. This chat room persists in perpetuity. Users can keep on poking each other after it's created.

Wireframes:

Here's what user "Sit" sees when they first poke user "Golgo13":

enter image description here

And here's what the pokee sees when they respond with a poke of their own:

enter image description here

If they press 'yes' now, they'll see:

enter image description here

These two users can now enter a private chatroom if they want.

And moreover, if the user who was poked last continues the poking interaction, they always get the option of redirecting to the private chatroom already created:

enter image description here

Question:

Pardon the roughness of the wireframes and copy - it's unfinished.

I'm struggling to make this flow more intuitive.

I feel confusion is sown because there are three things going on here. i) The poke itself, ii) whether a private chatroom has been created or not, iii) what privacy level to set.

Overall, I'm trying to utilize the poking functionality in a tinder-like way to create private chatrooms. However, it gets conceptually complicated because I allow users to poke in perpetuity afterwards. Moreover, I allow privacy settings on each poke.

How do I make this flow more intuitive/concise without a ton of compromise?

Improve this question
4
  • You can transform two steps into one: (1)Do you want to poke Sit? [Yes] [No] (2)Do you want this poke to be anonymous? [Yes] [No] to [Poke back] [Poke back anonymously] [Ignore], etc. I.e. use wordings/explanation close to controls.
    – Alexey Kolchenko
    Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 21:02
  • If I am poking someone anonymously and they also poke me back anonymously, will there be an option to create chatroom in such case?
    – Anupam Pareek
    Commented Oct 20, 2017 at 8:52
  • @AnupamPareek: yes it'll still be created.
    – Hassan Baig
    Commented Oct 20, 2017 at 13:35
  • I'm voting to close this question as it is too broad and opinion-based. Also, more importantly, there are a lot of logic and usability issues with the functionality here. All of which can't really be addressed here
    – Shreyas Tripathy
    Commented Oct 21, 2017 at 7:57

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

Though this question has a lot of loose points regarding functionality, I will help you to create a simple flow for your project.

As you mentioned there are mainly three things going on:

i) The poke itself.

ii) Whether a private chatroom has been created or not.

iii) What privacy level to set.

According to me, the flow should be like:

  1. Allow users to poke each other.

  2. If both users have poked each other. poke back

Here the user can either just poke back or create a chat room.

  1. Now if the user decides to create a chatroom and clicks on the button to create a chatroom.

enter image description here

In this way, the user can create a chatroom, maintain privacy and simply poke back the other user, all at the same time.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.