verb : have a spoken conversation with (someone) over the Internet using the software application Skype, typically also viewing by webcam.
I spent eight happy months on Skype in 2018. Ask me how there's an emoji named after me in the product (try typing 'chirag').
I came in at a time when Skype was trying to reverse course. In collaboration with an external studio, Microsoft worked on and launched a completely redesigned product a year prior, which met with user backlash, and millions of users abandoned the product. We were working to take Skype back to the easy-to-use, familiar name it was. I started by documenting every single important flow on Skype. It was a way to get acquainted with the product and find improvement opportunities. Swipe actions and the group chat creation flow were two of those. I also worked on the partnership with Amazon Alexa.
Swipe actions
The standard.
Was exploring variants where the context on which the action is being taken doesn't get hidden when swiped.
Group chat creation
Mapping primary user flows helped form a hypothesis around why a decent number of users were dropping off while creating a group chat – the mandatory group name step. I optimized the flow to land the user in the chat quickly.
Skype + Alexa
A lot of the work on this was already done when I took over (from a professor of mine, Austin Lee). My role involved working on the account connection flow between the two apps, preparing assets for engineering and marketing, and identifying + proposing solutions to bugs.
Want to Skype? Sure!