Client
Logos
Discipline
App Design
Branding
Collaborators
Miles Nanton
Daria Vailles
As messaging apps continue to provide transparency to their users and yell 'encryption' from the highest mountain, it's never been a better time to fill in the gaps for those who have made an exodus from big names such as Whatsapp and Facebook. Logos is a messaging app that is dedicating to providing great user experience with an unclouded focus on security.
Mylo has developed a new app for Logos that positions the company as a reformer in the field. The collaboration focuses on app design, branding and website.
The project started when Whatsapp declared that its 2 billion global users had to agree to new terms regarding the way it shares their personal information with Facebook by February 8, or they will no longer be able to use its services. The move set off a shriek from everyday WhatsApp users especially Alan & Elizabeth Morais, a married pair of entrepreneurs who had had enough of the breach in security.
The name Logos celebrates freedom, security and hope which was encapsulated in the idea of a dove. Striking similarities to the Twitter bird logo, it doesn't shy away from competing with pillar messaging brands and fostering new ways in which to improve user experience.
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One of the first things discussed was how to make the app easy to use. Conversations about how can we take the user from A to B with the most ease. I began to think about existing apps and the pain points within them that could be improved for the comfort of the user. 'Stretch & Tap' was one of the first things we looked at within most messaging apps. How we stretch our thumbs to fulfil actions. Main actions were adding contacts and creating groups. We decided that we could have one action button in the footer that when tapped went to an add contact screen. The main action button would change to a cancel button with the options to add contacts or create a group beside it. Pressing cancel would then take the user back to the chats screen.
Upon doing some gorilla testing with the one action button in the footer which made it easier to create. I also tested out a way to navigate from conversation to chats without extending our hands. This would place the back button just above the messaging options. This was also a hit during testing and made testers contemplate the current navigation in well known messaging apps like Whatsapp.
I also did some research concerning the messaging feed of the app. We know that most apps use a left to right pattern of conversation with the user typing on the right with the receiving messages appearing on the left. I wondered if it were easier to read message appearing on just one side of the screen. This was once the norm with messaging tools on websites like MSN and Hi5.
I also wanted the user to have a more personalised experience in their messaging with 'message (name of friend)...' as a placeholder in the message box. I also wanted to incorporate a way in which users could 'nudge' one another if they just wanted to kick off a conversation that they hadn't pre meditated. 'Nudging' was popular with Microsoft's MSN messenger in the 00's.
Usability is key. We believe that our app should be the easiest messaging app you’ve ever used. - Alan & Liz Morais
It was also a good idea to go with one main accent colour that could be changed by the user within settings. The main default colour is 'plump purple', a rich, vibrant purple that reflects the spiritual meanings in the name Logos.
The illustrations inked by my regular illustrator partner Daria Vailles. I wanted the illustrations to reflect a playfulness and to boldly use the primary colour purple. We also wanted to feature hints of being secure within the illustrations.
Another user experience nugget we put in to the design was to have the user's current messages appear closer to the footer as opposed to being listed at the top of the screen. We did a few tests with dominate users of messaging apps and the majority agreed that it was easier to get to current messages and to go back to chats; doing all with one finger.
I also created 'Flash groups' that disappeared after the date had been cleared. Often we find ourselves in groups for some reason or other and see that the more we scroll is the more we see groups we haven't been active in for months. So when setting up a group in Logos that's for an occasion, Logos gives you the option to create a 'flash group' that will delete as soon as the date has been cleared.
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