The Brilliance in Boring WhatsApp Design
If you look very well, WhatsApp is boring. But that is why it is the best product in Africa right now. The simplicity is legendary and the lack of efforts to make it “cool” is iconic. When others like SnapChat, Pinterest, and Instagram are killing themselves with immersive GUIs, WhatsApp is working to make everything more boring.
Sure, Africans and the whole emerging world are not boring: we simply want things that work. WhatsApp delivers that, adding goodies like working in the least possible connectivity strength, even when not practically eating your mobile credit. With no excessive loops and graphics, WhatsApp allows you to communicate without worrying about your bank account.
When you design, ask yourself why WhatsApp has been successful, and what you can learn from it. It is so easy to use that you do not even think you are using it. It does not load, it simply opens.
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As WhatsApp evolves, I see it to be the most important digital product in Africa. WhatsApp would eclipse Facebook in value and usage in coming years. It would be the ecosystem of business for most small businesses in Africa.
Towards the end of this year, I expect Facebook to unveil a Premium WhatsApp for businesses. The advertising model would not work for WhatsApp since most advertisers may not be necessarily fascinated with emerging economy traffics. So, the best is to turn it into an ecommerce powerhouse where merchants would pay subscriptions. Watch out for payment, remittance, storefronts, etc interface within WhatsApp platform.
Yes, boring designs could win. I have never seen one so great like WhatsApp and thank goodness, the engineers in Silicon Valley have not tried to destroy what makes it so good. That should be the metric as you design: the product must know that people use metered internet here, and must be done to demand lesser bandwidth, and work without breaking bank account.
