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Call Waiting on iPhone

Call waiting screen on iPhone with End and accept, Send to Voicemail, and Hold and accept buttons

The scenario

Over a period of several months, I saw a handful of posts about the iPhone's call waiting screen go viral on various social platforms. This screen was clearly causing confusion and anxiety for a large number of people. So I thought it would be a fun and interesting project to try to solve the problem.

What I did

Research

Research

Based on the comments, there were two main problems:

  1. The use of two icons for one action (in total, four icons for two actions either side of the "Send to Voicemail" button)

  2. The use of two verbs for one action (in total, four verbs for two actions either side of the "Send to Voicemail" button)

Persons would already be on a call and therefore had to decide quickly whether to accept or decline an incoming call. The combination of two icons and two verbs per action on either side of the "Send to Voicemail" button was a lot to process in a limited amount of time, causing much confusion and anxiety.

 

This resulted in users:

  • Getting major pause when the screen appeared

  • Making the wrong decision and getting frustrated

Even though people learnt what to expect when the screen appeared, they continued to experience major pause and to make the wrong decision. The limited time frame in which they had to decide contributed to that. The screen was therefore too complicated to encourage learned behaviour and needed to be simplified.

Mockups

Mockups

Based on the above research, I brainstormed possible solutions and eventually mocked up these three using Adobe XD:

Option 1

iPhone call waiting option 1. Three circular buttons: decline new call, end current call, and hold current call

Reasoning

My aim here was to keep things as simple and clear as possible, using familiar colours as well as one icon and one verb per action to significantly reduce cognitive load and the chances of making errors. I used a neutral colour for the middle icon to help persons avoid ending their current call by mistake. 

My copy prioritised the current call so the person would be clear on what would happen to the person already on the line when they make their decision on the new call.

Option 2

Reasoning

I aimed to keep things as simple and clear as possible here too, maintaining the use of familiar colours as well as one icon and one verb per action to significantly reduce cognitive load and the chances of making errors.

My copy again prioritised the current call so the person would be clear on what would happen to the caller already on the line when they make their decision on the new call.

I chose to provide an additional option to merge calls, so persons could easily choose to have a conference call with who's already on the line and the new caller, if those calls were related.

 

I also chose "Ignore New Call" together with a voicemail icon to make it clearer to the person that they're not flat out declining the new call, but in fact giving the caller the chance to leave a voice message.

iPhone call waiting solution 2. Four circular buttons: end current call, merge calls, hold current call, and ignore new call

Option 3

iPhone call waiting solution 3. Four rectangular buttons: hold current call, merge calls, end current call, and decline incoming call

Reasoning

This design was a nod to the iOS 6 call waiting screen. Some people said they preferred it to the current one. I simplified it to ensure there was one verb per action to reduce cognitive load.

 

I again prioritised the current call so the person would be clear on what would happen to the caller already on the line when they make their decision on the new call.

I also kept the option to merge calls so persons could easily choose to have a conference call with the caller already on the line and the new caller, if those calls were related.

What the users chose

Users' choice

My LinkedIn post was very well received! At the time, it was the most-viewed post on my profile. I used the reaction buttons as a voting method: 👍 - Option 1; 👏 - Option 2; 💡- Option 3. After receiving 119 votes, these were the results:

 

👍 - 80

 

👏 - 23             

 

💡 - 16

What I learnt

My learnings

Simplicity for the win! Simplicity always wins. But I was reminded that people just want as simple a solution as possible, especially in situations where time is of the essence. So my copy and design choices must always be simple and clear. 

 

This was truly a fun project!

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