After studying dozens of popular apps, I will tell you how to design a good "Like" function

It is no exaggeration to say that "like" is the most popular way of interaction in the era of mobile Internet and social media.

"Like" can quickly and easily evaluate the content posted by friends, helping people's communication on social media become frequent and intimate. At the same time, in order to win more "likes", users carefully select the content they post, which improves the quality of the platform's content.

What is the significance of adding “Like” to the product?

The number of likes you send and receive, your like-giving preferences, etc., can, to some extent, reflect who you are and what kind of state you are in. Behind the likes is actually a reflection of yourself.

As early as February 10, 2009, Facebook launched the "Like" feature, which significantly improved user retention, and the number and quality of posts also increased accordingly. About 30% of users would like multiple times a day.

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The history of “Like”

Video sharing site Vimeo believes that they were the first to open the door to "likes". At that time, Vimeo Vice President Andrew Pile thought that the concept of users pressing "Digg" to push content to the top of the social news aggregator Diggs was great, so they got the inspiration to allow users to press "like".

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It was not until 2007 that FriendFeed actually released and promoted the "Like" button as a new feature. After Facebook acquired FriendFeed in 2009, this feature was officially integrated into Facebook, which set off an even bigger social wave.

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After Facebook, major social media sites such as Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter began to use this feature. Various symbols such as "stars", "hearts", and "smiley faces" appeared, and likes became a universal currency in social networks.

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The emergence of a necessary function also means that it carries people's necessary needs. Likes satisfy people's basic needs of "being noticed, seen, and recognized."

How to design a useful and interesting "like" method

Try to analyze the interactive design of "Like" from before, during, and after clicking the like button.

1. Before liking

The nature of the APP product, how it displays content, and how the displayed content and likes are related.

The like icons of most apps are thumbs up or hearts. Some apps also make special designs for likes in order to highlight product features or increase the fun of likes.

Keep

The icon for users' likes in the Keep community is a small speaker, which amplifies the feeling of encouragement and call. The Keep community is ranked by popularity by default, and users often browse the most popular dynamics in a period of time. The small speaker icon is like calling on users to participate and start exercising.

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Jike APP is a community for young people who like to like things. It has designed exclusive like icons for popular theme circles. Generally, the like icons for Jike are thumbs up, while the like icons for love theme circles are hearts, basketball theme circles are basketballs, and dried fish for cat theme circles. The interesting thing is that the dried fish turns into fish bones after clicking.

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Facebook

Facebook designed the like button to allow users to choose more emojis to express their mood. Facebook has 2.38 billion monthly active users and 1.56 billion daily active users.

“Like” is an imperfect tool, and users need to express many complex emotions. Therefore, Facebook uses Angry, Heartbroken, Wow, Laughing, and Love to provide users with more choices when liking.

Zuckerberg said in a post: "I designed a new button that can express my emotions, because not all the things I share are happy, sometimes I want to express frustration and disappointment. As for the "dislike" button that netizens have been waiting for for a long time, it is different from the "like" button. It is not to tell friends and family how much you dislike their posts, but to express empathy and share different emotions in an appropriate way."

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WeChat Reading

When users browse the ranking of reading time, they can like friends who have persisted in reading this week, or choose to "poke" to wake up friends who have not persisted in reading this week. The purpose of "poke" is to remind friends who have not read this week and urge them to start reading as soon as possible. Reading requires encouragement from likes, but also requires reminders and urging from friends.

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2. When you click "Like"

Liking is not a simple interaction. Many excellent products have designed unique interactive experiences for users during the liking process.

QQ

For example, if you use QQ to like a friend's dynamic, the like operation can trigger a custom effect and accumulate the number of "likes". The number of likes triggers must maintain a certain high frequency, and the number can continue to accumulate.

QQ's main audience is the young post-00s group, and the special effects of "likes" are in line with user preferences. The cumulative effect of the number of likes continuously conveys feedback incentives and appreciation to users, giving users enough satisfaction and encouraging users to like more social activities.

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Hornet's Nest

When you like a travel diary, you can select a brand emoji and click on it, and the number of likes will be added up. The new way to like travel diaries is redesigned, and it even feels like playing a game, making it fun and enjoyable for users.

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Bilibili

Long press the like button to automatically like + coin + collect. Every UP host is an important resource of Bilibili. UP hosts usually remind users to "like, coin and follow" in the video. As a video platform, Bilibili designed a one-click three-link interaction to save users time, increase the chances of liking, coining and collecting, and help UP hosts increase their popularity.

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In addition, when you like a video on Bilibili, the Bilibili brand image animation effects will be triggered.

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Today's headlines

In addition to accumulating the number of likes when clicking on the Toutiao APP, each click will also produce emojis like fireworks, greatly increasing the fun of users clicking likes.

3. After clicking Like

When a user clicks the "like" button, it does not mean the end of the interactive behavior. Many small details after the "like" button can also impress the user.

Little Red Book

When users use the Xiaohongshu APP to like content they like, special text will be triggered, such as "Thank you for your sincere like", "It feels right, keep liking", etc.

A simple sentence can bring more profound emotional resonance to users than "like success". Likes are not only an incentive for creators, but also for users who like.

Based on the product attributes, there are many small details in the like interaction, which can easily bring surprise to users if they find them.

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Jike APP allows users to like their avatars. Jike APP is a community for young people. Users actually put a lot of thought into the avatars they choose, and when others like it, they are more likely to gain a special sense of recognition.

The interactive method of liking the cover of WeChat Moments has the same meaning.

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Summarize

Currently, Tieba, Jianshu and Zhihu have all set up the "dislike" function, but the "dislike" button does not indicate the number. Based on the nature of the products, these three types of apps are all UGC content products. Perhaps the platform hopes to add the dimension of "dislike" to improve the ranking of high-quality content in addition to the number of likes as a screening mechanism.

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In 2016, Facebook also considered adding a "dislike" button. Facebook's alternative at the time was to add emoticons to provide users with a way to help users express more complex emotions about the content.

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At present, it seems that if it is really launched, the "dislike" button will be limited to public content as a way to help users control which comments they want to see. Adding a "dislike" button can also help Facebook collect data and gain a deeper understanding of which discussions users are more interested in. This can also help Facebook better understand the tone and content of top comments and "disliked" comments, so that Facebook can better promote "meaningful" interactions.

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The Internet brings together people who are isolated in real life, and likes connect people emotionally. Social media is a space for expressing oneself and building relationships, and we cannot do without likes. The interaction of likes has always needed to be well designed because it is crucial.