Messenger is a mobile messaging app used for instant messaging, sharing photos, videos, audio recordings with friends and groups. With a Messenger account, users have access to a community of ~2.2B users. This exposure allows users to connect and find almost anyone around the world. This reach, however, exposes users to unwarranted message requests from unknown contacts leading to undesirable consequences (Spam, fraud, abuse).
Goals
As a result, Messenger has made it their mandate to rethink users relationship with those unknown. Creating a product that prioritizes safety and control, where users can feel confident knowing their conversations and personal information are for their eyes only.
Strategy
Improve the level of UI visibility and functionality around message request controls.
Reduce the amount of information accessibility made public to unknown contacts.
Increase the level of friction and control between users and unknown contacts.
Areas of Concern
There were three main areas of issues that needed to be sorted out.
1. Limiting Access to Personal Information
Having a conversation with a user, particularly one you don’t know should not give them access to all of your information.
2. Visible Message Requests
Users do not know where to go to retrieve Message Requests, thus making the function misused if used at all.
3. Add and Remove Contacts
Users currently are unable to add and remove contacts. There is no function to “add” and removal requires removing all contacts.
Step 1: Limiting Access to Personal Information (Receiver Side)
By having a users phone number, or being a Facebook friend grants us access to a contacts information. There are very few barriers in place to prevent bad actors, scammers and harassers from messaging unsuspecting users.
When a user responds to an Unknown Contact, they are now connected. The UC can now see their personal information and in some cases their Facebook profile. The first task was to add additional friction between the users.
Step 1: Limiting Access to Personal Information (Sender Side)
During this process, I discovered that Unknown Contacts are not necessarily bad actors. Many are often real users, in search of friends and family. In fact, of 54% of Unknown Contact conversations are ended by the sender.
While I had a solid barrier in place, preventing receivers from having their information available to everyone, I needed to reinforce the need for accuracy as it pertained to senders contacting those who may not know them.
Step 2: Visible Message Requests (Prior)
Message Requests were perceived by many users to be a hidden feature. The reality was Message Requests were buried under layers of foldering. A result of Messenger changing hands numerous times without a dedicated UX team.
Step 2: Visible Message Requests (New)
Based on this legacy issue, of the 90% of unknown contacts that land in Message Requests, 67% go unseen, thats around 48M message requests per day that go unseen. Retooling the Message Request UX was a paramount issue to fix.
Step 3: Adding Contacts
Currently, there is no specific CTA enabling users to connect on messenger. Instead, once the recipient replies to the sender, they are connected. This presents many safety and security issues, specifically with unknown contacts.
As an alternative, I decided the “handshake” needed to be much more explicit and matter-of-fact. User will tap a “Connect” button to solidify their relationship. This is a concept seen frequently across every popular social media app.
Step 3: Remove Contacts
There is currently no way to remove users from Messenger. Instead, we offer blocking and silencing. The only option for deleting contacts is for users to go to a web view of Facebook where they are prompted with deleting all of their contacts. Managing contacts is yet another legacy artifact of Messenger’s time as a service coupled to Facebook.
The first part of this was removing the address book upload to facebook. This made Messenger contacts now native to the app and not contingent on Facebook. We then wanted to make the removal process available both in the chat inbox and on a users profile. The most important factor here was to ensure that a user would not lose their chat log with a person they were no longer connected with. It would only revoke their personal attributes such as active status, video calls etc. Our goal here is always to keep the flow of conversation going while placing safeguards for better protection, communication and verification.
