Top of Group Home redesign (leading change by research)
The research team I supported observed a lack of strong hypotheses in product improvement efforts. To address this, we conducted a quick and scrappy participatory design study, which successfully captured the attention of org leads. Building upon this, we conducted an advanced follow-up study that led to the development of a framework aligned with users' mental models. Next, we collaborated with engineering leads to design experiments driven by insights. These experiments resulted in significant metric improvements, surpassing any progress made in the team's last 1.5 years of trials.
Context:
Facebook Communities (FB Groups) have been one of the major contributors to the Facebook app session time, app open, and the overall engagement with the app to the extent that the metrics related to the group use and engagement were repeatedly mentioned in the company’s quarterly earning calls
At the time of this project, top of the group home was consist of multiple organically grown features owned by various teams across the org, and lacked a clear product goal or user value
Product team owning the FB groups has been struggling to improve the use of Group Home and no design experiments resulted in incremental engagement gain
Due to limited resources research team only provided design evaluation research through a rolling research program to make sure experiments are usable and not confusing. Any strategic research required further approval (and had been deprioritized in the past)
Approach:
I was the research lead for a portfolio of products including the Group Home; overseeing and supporting a dedicated researcher in this product area
I realized continue conducting design evaluation research is not a good use of our research team. Considering that the eng team didn’t have a clear guideline, their experiments were often based on assumptions and although they looked reasonable, they didn’t eventually move metrics. So investing on creating a framework seemed a better use of time than supporting the team with conducting design evaluation.
To further investigate why incremental changes haven’t made a downstream effect on engagement metrics, in the research team we developed a hypothesis: Various features and call to actions presented on the top of group home are not organized based on the purpose that they serve for the user.
In partnership with the eng team, and as part of a rolling research program, we conducted a moderated co-design study to understand value of each of the Top of Home components so we further investigate the above mentioned hypothesis.
The eye opening results from that study granted us sponsorship and support from the research and product leadership. With that, we planned an additional round of study to advance our learnings and drive product recommendations.
In the second round of research we conducted a contextual inquiry with users while they were using the groups that they are a member of. This study also covered an in-depth interview discussing users common behaviors and needs.
Synthesis of this study revealed two main ways in which Top of Group Home components provide value to the Facebook Group users. This keystone insight became the beacon for further evaluation and redesign of Top of Group Home.
Impact:
Leading product improvement strategies by developing hypothesis and bringing insight
Our learnings went beyond answering the original questions and our insights provided directions for a major revamp in top of home.
Our core learning (the main two ways in which users benefit from the Top of Home components) provided a framework to the the Group Home product team to prioritize their investments and guide their future experiments
