Status Reshares & Attributions
My role: Lead designer on Status, a vertical team with 4 designers
I led the design and strategy for WhatsApp Status, the world’s largest stories product with 1.5 billion users (primarily used outside of North America and Western Europe). The challenge for this project was overcoming users’ lack of inspiration to post, with many citing a lack of updates to share. To drive engagement, WhatsApp Status needed more content. Our research showed users often shared screen-captured content, but creating original posts felt time-consuming. Notably, reshared content drove conversations which deepen connections and expand the ecosystem.
I worked with teams across WhatsApp, Meta, and third-party partners to enable seamless cross-platform sharing between WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook.
Additionally, I led the creation of a scalable Attribution framework which provides context on Status posts, such as mentions, resharing, music information, and content origins from platforms like Instagram or YouTube.
Details are restricted as some of this work is under NDA. However, you will find high-level project highlights below. Please feel free to contact me for additional details.
Reshares
Viewer Experience
For the viewer experience, I developed a flexible solution that could scale across various source apps without requiring WhatsApp to track changes on those platforms, while maintaining consistency with existing Status patterns. A key consideration was distinguishing how resharing original content created by the user on another platform would be treated differently from unoriginal content created by someone else, like Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts.
Simultaneously, I led the development of the attributions framework (shared below), ensuring it could scale across various use cases within the organization. This framework became a critical dependency for Reshares, Private Mentions, and several other projects across WhatsApp.
Poster Experience
The poster experience focused on the mechanics of linking back to the original source and the creative tools available for reshared posts. For original content created on other platforms (e.g., Instagram stories), I made the decision to preserve the story without allowing alterations to avoid introducing interaction complexities and user confusion, such as multiple stickers with conflicting entry points (e.g., an Instagram location sticker linking to Instagram versus a WhatsApp location sticker linking to a map). In contrast, unoriginal content like Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts would support creative tools such as stickers and drawing tools, allowing for creative expression.
Attribution Framework
An attribute provides contextual information that offers additional insight into a status, with the primary goal of informing and educating. I designed two components that scaled across multiple status use cases within the organization. Each attribute message is tied to ranking and logic, automating the role of air traffic control messaging when multiple attributes apply to a single status.