GroupMe

GroupMe is a messaging app built for students. But since its acquisition by Microsoft in 2011, it’s been long overdue for a refresh to better connect with today's audience. To make GroupMe the go-to communication app for college campuses, I worked on enhancing the polls and forms feature in chat extensions.

ROLE

Product Design Intern

PROJECT TYPE

Design Visioning

PLATFORM

Mobile

DURATION

March - May 2024

TEAM

PM, Design Mentor

OUTCOME

On FY25 Product Roadmap

My Role & Process

GroupMe operates like a startup within Microsoft. With the core team consisting of 2 PMs, a principal designer, and me (a product design intern), our goal for FY24 was to make it the best group chat experience for students. During my stint, I worked on multiple projects from net new features to re-building the web design system from scratch. A core project I worked on was future visioning for polls and signup forms.

A gap in GroupMe's polling story

We've identified a broad spectrum of polling experiences. At one end, there's a vision for richer, more fun and expressive polling capabilities. On the other, there is a desire for more functionality to fulfill common sign up form scenarios. Currently, GM’s polling system is limited to a basic text format. While users can ask a question and offer a set of options, this functionality is quite restricted.

Understanding user sentiments

To determine whether polls and sign up forms was a worthwhile project to explore, I reviewed 3 areas that would give us an indication of where our users were headed:

X.com shows a consistent pairing of GroupMe + a Google Form. GroupMe obviously lacks a dedicated sign-up feature leading users to rely on external tools like Google Forms and Signup Genius for event registrations - highlighting a clear gap in the app.
Our user feedback community has requested and offered suggestions for expanding in-app sign up forms within the app. Given the various scenarios in student life, such as limited volunteering slots for a campus event, this feature would be highly compelling.
Popular social apps among our core demographic found that the most engaging polls are in story-centric apps with elements of ephemerality, playfulness and personalization. The authenticity of ephemeral content fosters relatability and urgency, driving participation.

Prioritizing for impact

We wanted to explore both ends of the spectrum - from more expressive polls to more functional use cases like sign up forms. Since this was an exploratory project, it was crucial to limit our scope and not lose sight of the core 80% use case.

Our goal isn’t to recreate a full forms feature but to address the 80% use case within GroupMe. While Sign Up Genius targets event organization & task sign-ups, and Google Forms excels at data collection & analysis, we’ll focus on a simpler, more integrated solution.

Making the editing flow more engaging

Initially, the editing flow followed GroupMe's old design language (ex: toggle and calendar component). However, it wasn't in line with the revamp efforts that GroupMe was going through.

Feedback from my design mentor and comparing with apps in the competitive landscape led me to explore different interactions for each editing component. With more poll types, we also put an emphasis on consistency and clarity in order to create a seamless and enjoyable experience regardless of the poll type.

Before

After

Introducing a new suite of polls and forms

Image Poll - Creator Flow

Image Poll - Voter Flow

React Poll - Creator Flow

React Poll - Voter Flow

Outcome

This iteration culminated in a pitch presentation to the GroupMe PM team. Everyone was excited about the direction of polls and forms in the app and the potential for further improvements. I was able to bring my vision to life and receive approval to be placed in the backlog for the next iteration.

Looking to the future - sign up forms required more in-depth exploration. How would it fit in with the GroupMe Events feature? The current iteration only has slots and the associated quantity. Would sign up creators want more functionality? These are all questions to explore and test with our user research community in the next iteration.

Learnings

In this project, I learned the importance of developing business literacy. Learning to speak the language of other departments allows us to present our work in a way that non-designers can understand, appreciate, and fully support.