Suggested by @afsal181

Suggested by @rmvshy

Suggested by @rshimin

Suggested by @maratkharr

Splitting a group chat into subgroups this way could be a great idea. You can instantly see the number of unread messages in all the subgroups and intuitively understand how they work.

Navigation between them is not too easy, however, since side-swipe gestures are already taken for the 'back' and 'reply' actions. Reaching to the top of the screen also might be a bit of a pain, but acceptable overall.

The concept is not entirely thought through though. The chat list shows one new GIF message in "Jeff's club", but opening it displays 3 new unrelated messages in "Offtop". So where's the GIF?

Currently there are too many questions lacking answers. Which preview should be displayed for the group in the chat list – the last message of all of its subgroups? Should opening such a group always take the user to the subgroup with the most recent unread message? Can notifications settings be different for every subgroup – and if yes, how can a user change them? What happens if the titles of the subgroups are wider than the screen width? How do you actually create subgroups – as different group chats that you bind together, or as sections of one group?

Figuring out all such details makes a great design concept, worthy of a prize (~@durov)

Suggested by @Meh7an
Description: https://telegra.ph/Subgroup-Concept-06-09

Suggested by @pistolkors

Suggested by @maratkharr

The results of the animations contest are ready. We've selected 33 winners out of 126 artists who have submitted their animated stickers. Each of the winners will receive $1,500 from Telegram.

Meet the Walt Disneys of Telegram:

t.me/topanimated/3 (OwlHug)
t.me/topanimated/10 (egorzhgun)
t.me/topanimated/14 (@ValerieFortuna)
t.me/topanimated/18 (Anton Subbotin)
t.me/topanimated/23 (Aleksandr Kan)
t.me/topanimated/28 (Alena Sof'ina)
t.me/topanimated/32 (@Brainsheep)
t.me/topanimated/36 (Valeriya Belousova)
t.me/topanimated/45 (@archiekatt)
t.me/topanimated/49 (movio)
t.me/topanimated/53 (Sergey)
t.me/topanimated/57 (Valerij Deev)
t.me/topanimated/61 (@Polutis)
t.me/topanimated/65 (@Tarantinono)
t.me/topanimated/69 (@pototsky_a)
t.me/topanimated/73 (Rustam Ruziev)
t.me/topanimated/77 (Ol'ga Shibaeva)
t.me/topanimated/83 (Rouslan Malsagov)
t.me/topanimated/87 (@Dolka103)
___________________________________
t.me/topanimated/95 (@TohaNeploho)
t.me/topanimated/99 (@nikolayzharukhin)
t.me/topanimated/103 (PainDragon)
t.me/topanimated/107 (Irina Teryuha)
t.me/topanimated/113 (@Kazzzakstyle)
t.me/topanimated/117 (@syrreel)
t.me/topanimated/121 (@Teneres_a)
t.me/topanimated/128 (Mihail Golub')
t.me/topanimated/132 (Elena Chistyakova)
t.me/topanimated/136 (@TimVile)
t.me/topanimated/140 (Viktor F)
t.me/topanimated/144 (@ilyasergeevv)
t.me/topanimated/148 (Marina Charkina)
t.me/topanimated/152 (sedrik100g)

The first 19 artists in this list are encouraged to continue their work and add more stickers to their sets. If we like the sets, we will feature them on Telegram and reward their authors for every sticker uploaded. We are planning to make animated stickers available to all users of Telegram by late June / early July. Every set must include at least 15 stickers to be rewarded and featured.

Please note that the current production version of Telegram is not optimized for animated stickers, and some animations from @topanimated may look slow/buggy. This will get fixed within a month.

Our representative will get in touch with the winners from the official verified Telegram account to coordinate the payments and potential work together.

Many thanks to the artists for the great animations – and congratulations to the winners!

Suggested by @Mihaylenko_SG

Today we are starting a contest for UI designers. The task is to create UI visualizations of voice calls on Telegram. The minimum prize budget of $10,000 will be distributed among the authors of best works.

We expect UI animations showing how a user starts, accepts and ends voice calls on either Android or iOS. You may also include static images you deem necessary. All videos/pngs should be sent to @design_bot before 11:59PM CET June 22, 2019. We expect pixel-perfect graphics and “wow-effects” in animations. You may also want to show the 4-emoji verification process in your mockup.

Good luck!

Suggested by @inforest, "This is a slight improvement, but I believe that it would make Telegram more convenient."

Suggested by @VladyslavPavlenko

Suggested by @avonakina, "How 3 design students took on a challenge of improving Telegram — https://medium.com/@prodlenkatelegram/design-case-study-how-to-increase-the-use-of-telegram-2b324be3875b"

We keep receiving a lot of great works in the UI design contest. However, some of the submissions ignore one or more of these three recommendations:

1. UI mockups that are night theme only are not sufficient for the contest. We understand that dark designs look cooler on demos. But the default theme on Telegram, as well as in both mobile operating systems, is bright. Make sure you upload a day mode layout together the night mode one.

2. UI mockups can be original when it comes to transitions and choice of colors, but departing too far from the default layouts and icons of the operating system can result in less intuitive UIs. A UI is intuitive when it reuses most of the language (icons, colors, layouts) that is already familiar to the user from the default apps (like the UI of standard calls).

3. UI mockups should fit naturally into the existing Telegram app design. If the rest of the Telegram app is utilizing icons, behaviors or fonts that are noticeably different from those used in your mockup, it may result in a visible lack of consistency. If you’d rather redesign the rest of the Telegram app in accordance with your calls UI mockup, you can do that, but in this case we’ll expect the mockups of all the other relevant screens of Telegram from you.

Those recommendations may seem obvious to most professional designers who daily deal with UI integrity and intuitivity. However, many talented but less experienced designers may benefit from adhering to these principles. The art of the UI design is finding balance between the already known and the new, between the standard and the original.

This mockup below is one of the late arrivals for the previous design competition. Replacing double check mark with an eye icon is something we've been thinking about here at Telegram. Well done, great idea and nice implementation.

Another take on folders / tags / categories of chats: