WW together
Summary
For over a century WeightWathcers was a eating plan and communal support system, architected around servicing those two means of behavior change. Andrew was tasked with extending the product to allow real-time chat communication that brought the magic and safety that was palpable during in-person workshops to the digital space.
01Chat
Starting a chat
WW members viewed chatting as a deeply personal and meaningful thing. That’s why we choose to make the entry point to starting a chat with someone on a members profile, so you could get to know them a little better first. We also placed a spot in the top of navigation so your chats are easily accessible.
getting the gang together
Members may have been looking for deeper conversations with each other but they were not always 1:1. To support this we made starting and adding others to a chat a trivial matter.
Kept in the loop
We decided to include system messaging in a chat that would call out important changes made. This way everyone always knows whats going on. Think of it like everyones personal secretary.
Search what was said
Humans forget when things where said and at times even by whom, but never that they were said at all. Andrew wanted to make sure that WW’s members would be able to find those hazy conversations among all of their chats.
Principal product designer
Liz Rutz
Over my years of working with and at one point managing Andrew on the WeightWatchers Design Team, he consistently showed up with a unique level of care both for the people he works with and the problem space he's solving for.
Inviting friends
We believed that making it easy to bring your network in to chat would be a zero cost way to grow a members network, increase engagement, and add new paying subscribers.
Perfecting the Icon
After some tests, we realized that chat icons can look a lot like support icons. That’s why we went back to the drawing board to find the right way to communicate chatting amongst members and not bots.
Saftey & Privacy
We believed that privacy is a right that everyone should have. Andrew implemented a harassment blocker: after the first message sent from someone not followed they can’t send another one before the receiver replies or follows them.
02Sharing
easily & effortlessly
Once something catches a WW members eye the only thing we wanted them to think about was how others needed to see it too. Andrew kept this goal in mind when using familiar patterns that previewed the content being shared and gave options for where to send it.
Send & go
Andrew wanted to create a way to send things to those you’re closest with while not being interrupted while in scroll mode. Here the share sheet is smaller while holding, you can drag on the place and release to send it. Fast right?
all your sharing in one place
We didn’t want members to have to leave and track down something that came up in a chat with their friend. By including a list of all their sharables, they could make their chat more engaging and actionable.
Nuging to share
If a member ever did something that received a reward or shoutout from us, then we wanted to let others also for them cheer. Why celebrate alone when you can celebrate together?
03Identity
display names
We decided to add a name they could go by to make it easier to find other members known IRL or met in the WW community. It also allowed us to be more personal and friendly towards them by using their chosen display name over their legal name.
profile sharing
Instead of requiring to search for someone you know, Andrew decided to take the opportunity to allow members to share their profile to others or allow others to scan their profile.
One thing learned
If an image is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth a million. Showing others you’re end-to-end blue skies prototype will get you more stakeholder buy-in then any deck, doc, or call ever will.
One Avoidable mistake
Patterns from the first rate experiences are not always premier themselves. Exiting testing we uncovered that choices involving particular patterns from leading companies that we folded into the core of our flows to move quickly led to some serious usability issues.