Making every message feel close.

Designing VecApp’s direct messaging experience, a dependable, organized space for church communities to connect.

01 THE BRIEF

Messaging is simple… until it has to do everything.**

The business requirements described far more than a chat box. Members needed to discover people, exchange rich media, recover from poor connectivity, manage privacy, track threads, search deeply, and control entire conversations.

My design challenge was to turn a system heavily packed with features into an experience that still felt familiar on first use, while keeping advanced actions available when people needed them.

02 FRAMING THE SYSTEM

From 80+ requirements to four clear jobs.

I grouped the BRD by what members were actually trying to do. This created a simpler mental model for navigation, prioritization, and reusable components.

<aside> 1️⃣

Connect

Find a user, understand their availability and start a private conversation.

People search · profiles · presence

</aside>

<aside> 2️⃣

Express

Send text, emojis, and media without losing anything as connectivity changes.

Drafts · media · offline retry

</aside>

<aside> 3️⃣

Follow Up

Reply, thread, forward, star (bookmark) and search so important context stays retrievable.

Replies · threads · In-chat search

</aside>

<aside> 4️⃣

Stay in control

Manage privacy, notifications and history at message or conversation level.

Edit · delete · mute · archive

</aside>

03 DESIGN STRATEGY