Enhanced Search Functionality... KakaoTalk's First Update of the Year Underway

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kakao announced on the 11th that it has carried out the first KakaoTalk update of the year (v10.0.5). This update added and improved various features to enhance user convenience.

First, in KakaoTalk’s search function used to find friends, chat rooms, and KakaoTalk channels, 'Integrated Talk Message Search' and 'Shopping Search' features have been added. Previously, messages could only be searched within individual chat rooms, but now when a search term is entered, messages matching the query are found and displayed across all chat rooms. Users can check messages not only from conversations with friends but also from messages sent by channels, and filters by period, friend, and chat room can be applied within the results to quickly find the desired message.

The Shopping Search shows commerce products from various services such as KakaoTalk Gift, Kakao Makers, Kakao Friends, and Kakao Shopping Live all at once in the search results. Searches can be filtered by category, price range, and recommendation order.

Additionally, the usability of the ‘Scheduled Message’ feature, which was applied to KakaoTalk since May last year, has been improved. Previously, the scheduled messages displayed a Jordi icon which limited usage, but with this update, the Jordi icon within scheduled messages has been removed, allowing scheduled messages to be used just like regular messages. This applies to all scheduled messages sent from the update point onward, even if the latest version of KakaoTalk is not installed.

Considering that scheduled messages are generally used for various purposes such as work-related tasks, birthday congratulations for acquaintances, team or club activity announcements, and reminders sent to oneself, the removal of the scheduled message indicator is expected to allow users to send and receive scheduled messages more comfortably.

KakaoTalk’s digital accessibility has also been strengthened. The ‘Provision of Alternative Text for Kakao Emoticons’ feature has been added. Alternative text provides descriptions to convey the meaning or purpose of content for visually impaired users and allows it to be read aloud. Until now, this feature was limited to KakaoTalk’s default emoticons, but with the update, voice guidance is now available for all emoticons sent within KakaoTalk chat rooms.

For example, if a KakaoTalk user sends a Kakao emoticon image of a ‘bear working at a computer,’ previously the voice guidance would say, ‘Kakao emoticon, 12:21 PM.’ After the update, the guidance will provide a description such as ‘working, computer, bear, animated emoticon, 12:21 PM.’

Kakao is carrying out various accessibility improvements including a high-contrast theme for low-vision users, screen reader support for the PC version, and support for Android-based braille information terminals. Every time new features are added to KakaoTalk, usability tests are conducted and continuous accessibility verification is performed to strengthen digital accessibility.

In addition, this KakaoTalk update includes various new features and improvements such as speech bubble translation support exclusively for iOS users through the Labs feature.

A Kakao official stated, “We are considering various ways to improve convenience for KakaoTalk users and are striving to present more advanced services,” adding, “We will continue to release updates to satisfy user needs and enhance service stability and convenience.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.