WhatsApp Messenger

Features

WhatsApp Messenger enables users to send and receive text messages and to exchange pictures, video and audio media messages. Messages are sent via WhatsApp Messenger servers and delivered to the recipient's smartphone. WhatsApp Messenger users can enable a service called WhatsApp Web, which allows them to exchange messages via the WhatsApp Web website on a desktop computer. The number of messages sent and the number of active users of WhatsApp Messenger increased significantly over time.
The most recent figures provided by the company indicate that as of April 2016, WhatsApp Messenger had 1 billion monthly active users. On July 27, 2016, the company announced that over 100 million people were using its service each month.

Design

WhatsApp Messenger design is quite simple and it is easy to use. Though it is a cross-platform app, its UI is almost the same on all platforms. It has a very simple user interface, which makes it easy to use. It has a chat box at the bottom, a status box at the top, a chats list in the middle, and a button for adding new contacts, photos and videos. The chatbox shows the date and time for every chat, and you can see when the contact was online. It has a close button in the top right corner. If you tap and hold on to any chat, then you get a menu with the option to delete the chat, add a new contact, mute notifications, change notifications and forward the message. It also provides an option to send a large-size photo or a video. Sending and receiving messages is simple and easy. It works in almost all countries.

Usability

WhatsApp Messenger usability is dubious at best. It has really unique and complex design, which is unnecessarily hard to figure out. Let's start with the basics. When you start the app you are presented with your contacts list. This is the only use case for WhatsApp, you can't do anything else in the app. It is not possible to send messages to anyone else than your contacts. To add a new contact you have to tap on the green plus sign in the top right corner. This will bring up a small window where you can either choose from your contacts or enter a new number. If you choose to enter a new number you will have to enter the complete number with country code, otherwise, the number won't be found. This is confusing, I've never seen this type of validation before.

Conclusion

WhatsApp Messenger is a great app to send messages to your friends. It is simple and easy to use. It is also very useful.