What’s the deal with chats?
One of Fast Forward’s star features is their timed chat feature. Once two users match on Fast Forward they have…
48 hours to send an introduction to each other
7 days to chat back and forth before losing the ability to chat on the app
While users have the option to extend (a premium feature), the idea is to get users off the app, and into real life connections sooner rather than later. This is how we begin to breakdown the pen-pal model that occurs so frequently with other apps.
Chats as of March 2023
When I first joined, Fast Forward’s timed chat features showed very small countdown clocks, highlighted in colors that weren’t necessarily intuitive to users. We could only give them hour by hour time-lines in this model, which decreases the sense of urgency we strive for.
The abundance as circles also confused users. When a user was a “superlike” match, there was an unexplained badge for that, the reconnect button was a circle, and it was ultimately difficult to distinguish which badge meant what.
Chats Redesign: October 2023
With the implementation of this re-design, users were more readily able to see and sort their messages and chats.
We modified the countdown clock in both shape and color — allowing us to accommodate a hours and minutes model, as well as expand the presence of the colors needed to indicate urgency.
New user icons showed more of each matches’ profile both in the matches row and the chat’s column, making each match more distinguishable. We also introduced unmatching, as well as blocking and reporting, in this re-design.
Chats User Education Panel: November 2023
With the introduction of timed features, user education is imperative. That’s why we introduced this modal. It breaks down, in 4 screens, the exact timeline for each step of connecting on Fast Forward.
Chats Current: November 2024
We brought down the colors in this version, as the side bar colors were indistinguishable. We also removed the “their turn” indicator because it was superfluous, and we wanted to give more emphasis to the your turn indicator.
This version also saw the introduction of the blue highlight to indicate new and unread chats.
Up Next: Monetized Chat Features
When we introduce monetized features, the colors underlying the chats page will be even further simplified to apply emphasis where it is most needed: expiring matches, your turn, and reconnect. Reconnect will be a paid feature, so it’s imperative that it stand out.
We’ll also be introducing an improved graphic for the “bottom” of chats - when users have yet to start any conversations.
