Clubhouse App: UX Teardown
So… I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been extremely addicted to the new audio-based social media app, Clubhouse. While it’s still currently in beta mode, the app has garnered quite a bit of attention from the many insightful, fun, and unique conversations that have been held exclusively on the app. What sets this application apart from other social networks is that it uses voice to promote genuine, meaningful connections with people from all walks of life. One minute you can be in a room with your favorite celebrity discussing their upcoming project, the next you could be receiving a free reading of your birth chart from an expert astrologist. The app is truly versatile in its content and is proving to be the talk of the town.
Although I love this app, as an avid user I have discovered a few pain points and decided to make it the subject of my next teardown.
What Clubhouse Does Well
Simple User Flow
As far as the browsing of the application goes, Clubhouse makes the process pretty intuitive. This is essential to the app’s success as there really isn’t much of an onboarding process upon joining the app. Once you’ve logged in, you’re brought to the “hallway”, a collection of different chat rooms with their topics displayed at the top and speakers/listeners in the room being displayed right underneath. One click and you’re immersed in conversation.
Design Familiarity
The application employs the use of emojis to portray various statuses within the app. The chat bubble next to users’ names, for example, indicates they’re talking. The icons used, such as the bell for notifications and the calendar for events, are also universal. The design is easy to understand and adapt to.
Ease of Use
Clubhouse’s simple and familiar UI provides new users with a low learning curve to begin using the app. This plays a huge part in the app’s growth because it calls for users to jump right into the fun.
Findability
Before writing this article, I had to manually tailor my account to discover rooms related to topics I enjoy by following random users with related keywords in their bio. While this was helpful to discover new people, this was a huge constraint that could’ve deterred users from the platform… something I planned to highlight here. But at the end of December, Clubhouse finally introduced their Topic Page and I couldn’t be more excited. This makes the discovery of new accounts, people and clubs so much easier!
However, a findability flaw that is still present even with this update is that it still remains difficult to directly find conversations related to desired topics going on right now. To solve that, implementing a search bar feature to browse ongoing rooms would be nice.
Where Clubhouse Can Improve
Accessibility
As creators, we have the responsibility to start the development process with accessibility in mind. When accessibility becomes an afterthought, fixing these accessibility issues can demand additional costs than it would have required initially. And even after these issues are solved, the app may still be off-putting to the users that were originally excluded. As an audio based app, Clubhouse is rendered inaccessible to HOH and Deaf Users. Now, Clubhouse has to find a way to include the community without causing the app to move out of its current scope.
Feedback
Users need confirmation of their actions. There’s been plenty of times where I’ve been brought into a Clubhouse room from the accidental push of a notification. Or, have unmuted myself onstage with a misplaced finger. Implementing some sort of haptic feedback for these actions would increase user experience greatly.
Another form of feedback that should be taken into consideration is the visual feedback provided for users to identify the speakers within the room. When someone is speaking, a brown ring surrounds their profile photo. This is hard to notice in a large group of speakers, especially when trying to quickly catch someone before they finish their point.
Nice Features to Have
Opt-In Privacy
Anyone that follows you on Clubhouse is able to see what room you’re in at all times. Like I said, Clubhouse is home to a wide range of conversations. For me, I use the app leisurely and professionally. So I find myself sometimes refraining from joining in on fun conversations because I don’t want my professional network to see where I am. Providing users with some form of private mode would allow us to use the app for multiple use cases with no worries.
LinkedIn Integration
Like me, many people have been using Clubhouse to network with others in their field. Currently, the only social media integrations in the app are Instagram and Twitter but to benefit the networkers of Clubhouse, it’d be nice to include an option for users to directly link their LinkedIn profiles as well.
Ability to Change Room Titles
Naturally in conversations, new thoughts and points made are likely to steer the conversation away from its original topic. There’s been a few times in which I’ve joined an interesting looking Clubhouse room just to realize they’ve moved on to something completely different than what I had joined to hear. There’s also been times where moderators were notified of the offensiveness or inaccuracy of their chosen title. But, as of right now, the only way to change these titles would be to close the room and start a new one. Because this might cause a decline in listeners, it’s something moderators are typically unwilling to do. Implementing a way to change room titles would be a great way to mimic the natural flow of conversation.
Pose Questions
Clubhouse was designed to be a space for everyone to have conversation. With the growing number of Clubhouse users, it can be difficult to cultivate a conversation space in which every voice is heard. The ability to pose questions to speakers while off-stage would be a great way to make sure everyone’s voice continues to be heard.
That’s it for this teardown. If you’re a Clubhouse user as well, I’d love to hear in the comments what features you’d wanna see implemented. Also if you enjoyed this article, please share! ❤️
