MessengerRemote Presence
When Avatar Hot Likes Could've Been Too Much
The opportunity:
As a popular feature on Messenger, we believed integrating with Avatars would add a ton of value to the connection experience. We also found in research that users found the feature appealing when they were looking to personalize their messages.
Users could opt in at their profile level and enable or disable the feature in their avatar settings. When the feature is enabled, the users emojis would appear like an avatar hot like on all chats.
We also included the ability for users to see their hot like in more detail by long pressing on the entry point.
The problem:
In testing, we found that some participants felt that the feature was inappropriate for all chats, especially ones that involved professional communications (e.g., Marketplace) or with people they did not know very well. We realized that users, especially teens, were worried about forgetting that the hot like function was on and they would accidentally send one to the wrong person. However, we didn't have bandwidth to change the design and still hit our launch date.
What we did:
My team felt strongly that we could not risk the trust of our users, especially a demographic we really wanted to grow, but releasing this feature as it stood. We worked with UXR and leadership to communicate the issue, risks and tradeoffs of launching on time, but risking losing trust with a user who could be embarrassed by accidentally emoting with a hot like.
In the end, we postponed the launch and hot likes are currently chosen at each instance.
Using Design Principles to Guide Desktop App Nav Rail Refresh
The opportunity:
Our nav was supposed to highlight community messaging. However, the inability to collapse the Chats list (instead of dragging the horizontal splitter) was frustrating to our users, 70% of whom used Windows to access Messenger on desktop.
And then we realized the problem was not actually about collapsing. It was about knowing our users, navigation and focus.
What we did:
Worked with team to develop design principles based on data insights to inform partners how to best design for the desktop app in order to leverage the power of the large screen to amplify and expand connections.
Worked across leadership and XFN to roll out principles to serve as guardrails for design.
Support the way people want/need to focus
Give people control over how they focus so they can choose when to multitask and let them filter noise.
Why design based principles worked:
Understanding desktop screen space is used differently from mobile (i.e., longer usage time, more community interaction with larger groups, less privacy, Marketplace). Not everything needs to fit into the main window we could leverage native patterns to use the space more efficiently.
Focus on core functionality; use popovers and windows for "extras"
Sidebar Refresh
Led content design in developing a sidebar within the Messenger and Instagram video call IA to accommodate the portfolio of recently released augmented reality (AR) filters.
Goal was to create something scalable and relevant without being overwhelming.
Final feature included:
Limited feature exposure pulled from larger set of features and overall IA.
Hidden sidebar during ringing to avoid conflict with existing UI, but visible once the call is connected. Hides upon clean state trigger, like any other control.
Accessible during Watch Together by tapping outside media player.
Hidden behind a tap in landscape view in order to avoid disruption of mode.
Limit of four entry points + chevron. Additional UI elements are hidden to reduce cognitive load and elements not relevant to the interaction are dimmed when sidebar is expanded.