WhatsApp’s adding some new chat elements to help improve engagement and contextual understanding, which could also see people interacting in new ways via message.

First off, WhatsApp’s rolling out single-vote polls, which will enable users to restrict the amount of responses that each chat participant can provide to a poll question.

As per WhatsApp:

“For when you need a definitive answer, we’re introducing the option for poll creators to allow people to vote only once. Simply turn off ‘allow multiple answers’ when creating a poll.”

That may seem like a relatively minor tweak, but it could make for more interesting, indicative poll responses, which could help to clarify debates in group chats.

Users will now also be able to search for polls within a chat, by filtering messages by polls, in the same way that you can for photos or videos.

“On the ‘Chats’ screen, press ‘Search’ and then ‘Polls’ to find a list of all results.”

So now you’ll also be able to go back to your old single response poll and re-surface it when you need receipts.

WhatsApp’s also updating its sharing options for images with captions, giving users the option to either keep, delete or re-write a caption when they share an image.

You’ll also now be able to add a caption to photos and videos when you forward them, which could help to provide more context when distributing posts in your chats.

Finally, you’ll now also be able to add captions when you share documents in a chat.

“Just like when sharing images or videos, the documents you share may require a little explanation. Whether it’s when sending a newspaper article or a work document, now you have the option to add a caption before sharing.”

That’ll make it a little easier to manage your shares in-stream, especially in group chats, where the explanation can sometimes get lost in the shuffle.

These are some handy additions, which will help to streamline your WhatsApp interactions, and could provide a range of ways to improve communications between brands and customers as well in the app. More direct explainers will make it much easier for people to stay on top of each element, and it’s worth considering how these new options could clarify things for your process.

WhatsApp says that all of these new elements are being rolled out to users globally from today, and will be available to everyone ‘in the coming weeks’.