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Project Specifications

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Dropbox Users

The companies using Dropbox are most often found in the United States and in the Computer Software industry.Dropbox is commonly utilized by companies with 10-50 employees and 1M-10M dollars in revenue.

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Possible Feature Benefits

• File sharing through chat (eliminate copy pasting links via email or Slack)

• Increase in-app engagement

• Faster collaboration

• Additional context (Reduced context fragmentation)

The UX research team at Dropbox identified the following as a typical workflow for a designer. Dropbox came to identify the main reason why this workflow left much room for improvement: a key concept called context fragmentation. With each step in the workflow described above, a little more context is lost – creating confusion on issues such as who said what, who has seen what or who decided what. Therefore, context Fragmentation can be a potential reason to implement a chat feature.

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Questions to Consider

1) How will users select the users they want to message?

• Users can search by name, email, or group name

• Users can also invite others to join a chat via email

2) Should direct messages be separated from notifications or integrated with them?

Direct messaging should be separate for the following reasons:

• Notifications and messages should be on the left side in order to utilize preexisting multi-column design pattern.

• Separating notifications based on the context that triggered them gives users the ability to compartmentalize and understand information faster. It also removes anxiety caused by ambiguity.

3) Dropbox already has several other features that involve sending "messages" of some kind to other users, including comments and file requests. Should a direct messages feature be distinct from these existing features or integrate with them in some way?

• Direct messages should be distinct in regards to notifications!

• Users can share files via direct messaging (ie. shortcuts to direct messaging file links using icons or buttons). This will eliminate the need to share through emails or external communication tools such as Slack.

• However, comments, file requests and transfer should be separate because they are more likely to be asynchronous communication.

• Additionally, file transfer are designed for times when you need to turn over large collections of final files to clients and other people outside your company. Therefore, it should be kept separate from an in-app interaction like chat.

4) You can currently perform most actions with people who aren't yet members of Dropbox. Should the direct messages feature conform to this established expectation or differ from it?

• Users should be able to share invites to others users who aren’t yet members of Dropbox.

• Direct message should require a user to have a Dropbox account in order to use the feature because it is an in-app feature!

5) Should messages be real-time, like Facebook chat, or asynchronous, like email? What trade-offs are involved in each?

• In-app chatting exists to provide real time communication and making it asynchronous like email would defeat that purpose.

• Real time collaboration, requires real time communication!

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User Interview Insights

Top 3 features used:

• Sharing files

• Collaborating within documents

• Webex Integrations Security is an essential component of Dropbox

• Other features are not commonly used

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Persona

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Existing Design Patterns

The goal of gathering screenshots was to further understand the design patterns utilized for interaction. The challenge criteria was to create additional UI that follows the current design patterns.

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Chat Feature Design

Chat UI

• Messages are hosted on the left in order to keep UI patterns consistent with a multi-column layout

• Chat has two sub-sections: group chats and direct messages

• Users can view folder/file details on the right column

• Users can view and access files through chat using “Access Folder” to redirectUsers can view if attachments have been added (indicated by the icon next to notifications)

• Users can start new chats using the plus button and search for users to message

• Users can invite people who do not have a Dropbox account to join chat through email

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Share Files via Messages

• Users can choose to share files as an email or a message

• Notifications would be redirected to messages

• Shared files would remain a different category, but would not receive separate notifications

• This makes file sharing easier and faster, giving the chat function more value

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Challenges

• Complexity of the product      

• Learning about product features with no access

• Understanding the task flow

• Recruiting research participants

• Validating assumptions based on limited information

• Replicating the UI without a design system or guidelines

• Being quick and efficient (8 hour time limit)

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Next Steps (If given more time)

Note: This is an iterative process and will not follow a linear path

• Further understand the problem and potential benefits of this feature

• Validate a need for this feature

• If a need exists, conduct further research

• Conduct additional user interviews

• Create a thorough design system

• Prototype

• User test

• Create metrics to test the success of the feature