Snapchat uses colors and icons throughout the app to quickly convey information to users as they navigate the app, and the purple lock is no exception. Over the years, many new features have been added to Snapchat to provide a better user experience, and the lock icon adds to the list of useful yet subtle aspects of the app.
Snapchat’s different colors and icons, such as arrows, circles, and other shapes, let users know what’s going on without telling them explicitly. This applies to private messages and stories. For example, certain symbols, such as a solid blue arrow, indicate that a message was sent but not read, while arrows with a blue border indicate that the message was sent and read.
The purple lock around a Snapchat story means that the story is private and unviewed, if the story has been viewed the lock will be grayed out. Private stories on Snapchat are simply stories that cannot be seen by unapproved friends, and the lock indicates that the story has been sent to a specific number of friends, but not all of them. The story’s target friend will see a purple lock.
More colors on Snapchat
These colors and icons are also important to stories on Snapchat, as news is one of the key aspects of Snapchat. Knowing if a story is viewed, available, or other important information is critical to allowing Snapchat users to quickly analyze what they want to spend their time doing. For example, the purple circle around a Snapchat story indicates that the user hasn’t seen the story in the Stories section of the app. This is similar to the blue circle around the friend emoji in the app’s messages area, which means the same thing as the purple circle.
New users may feel a bit overwhelmed by all the colors, shapes, and icons in Snapchat, but indicators like these can be very helpful in app design. It can make the app feel less cluttered and user-friendly, instead of showing notifications to the user or sending pop-up notifications for everything. While a new app with a different color and shape may mean something different from another, if designed well, these get used up quickly and can be very useful in the long run.
Source: Snapchat