WhatsApp users have been anticipating the launch of a new disappearing mode for quite some time now. This would essentially make it so that when you select the mode and send messages with it, your messages would get deleted after a certain period of time has passed. The WhatsApp beta for Android has revealed a lot more information about this as well, such as the fact that you will have a range of options that you can select with regards to how long you would want your messages to exist before they automatically get deleted.
It is important to note that WhatsApp is basically doing this because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing it to compete with other messaging platforms such as Signal which have been making massive headway due to the reason that a lot of users have become somewhat suspicious of WhatsApp and especially its parent company Facebook, something that makes the rather restrictive nature of this mode a little confusing.
You can basically choose between 4 options if you want your messages to disappear automatically. These four options are 90 days, 7 days, 24 hours or turning the mode off entirely. It is rather strange that you can only choose between three vastly different time periods. User should ideally be able to decide for themselves how much time they would require before their messages get deleted. The fact that the lowest amount of time is 24 hours is also not ideal since many users would prefer it if their messages were deleted within a much shorter timespan. All in all it doesn’t seem like WhatsApp’s new disappearing mode is going to give it the boost that it needs from a user experience perspective.
Read next: WhatsApp's New Accessibility Feature Allows Users To Convert Their Voice Notes To Text Messages
It is important to note that WhatsApp is basically doing this because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing it to compete with other messaging platforms such as Signal which have been making massive headway due to the reason that a lot of users have become somewhat suspicious of WhatsApp and especially its parent company Facebook, something that makes the rather restrictive nature of this mode a little confusing.
You can basically choose between 4 options if you want your messages to disappear automatically. These four options are 90 days, 7 days, 24 hours or turning the mode off entirely. It is rather strange that you can only choose between three vastly different time periods. User should ideally be able to decide for themselves how much time they would require before their messages get deleted. The fact that the lowest amount of time is 24 hours is also not ideal since many users would prefer it if their messages were deleted within a much shorter timespan. All in all it doesn’t seem like WhatsApp’s new disappearing mode is going to give it the boost that it needs from a user experience perspective.
H/T: WABI.
Read next: WhatsApp's New Accessibility Feature Allows Users To Convert Their Voice Notes To Text Messages
