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Head of Design at Facebook: How Her Team Uses Data To Make Decisions

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Re: Head of Design at Facebook: How Her Team Uses Data To Make Decisions

#11

Post by zach »

kurtosis wrote: post #9
snprbob86 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "manipulative", I say "persuasive". Is it manipulative to optimize the tag line on your landing page? You're trying to persuade a visitor to buy your product. Or are you trying to manipulate them to buy your product? The same principal applies to keeping customers. I'd call this manipulative when it becomes disingenuous. For example, had they put actual speech bubbles above my friends' heads and led me to bel…

Well the deactivation page did automatically say that the users "friends" would "miss" them. Did they actually check with these users to see if they would want their image and identity to be used in this way? If not, then it seems pretty disingenuous to me. How do they know that these users will actually miss them? Why is facebook assuming that my friends would not respect my decision to leave facebook if that was th…

Well, they A/B tested with your friends saying "good riddance!" and "fine, get lost!" but the clear winner was the "miss you" page...

Re: Head of Design at Facebook: How Her Team Uses Data To Make Decisions

#15

Post by akd »

izaidi wrote: post #7
lpolovets wrote: post #4

FTA: "Facebook had a really boring deactivation page when you close your account... [One of the designers created a page] which has all your friends waving good-bye to you as you deactivate. Give you that final tug of the heart before you leave. This reduced the deactivation rate by 7%." While that's a nice reduction in deactivations, it also strikes me as somewhat manipulative. It feels like many of the "social" com…

It's interesting that the only time Facebook seems to want to offer you any kind of emotional experience is when you're trying to leave the site, and the experience is designed to be a negative one, rooted in guilt.

I find that checking Facebook is almost always an emotional experience. I see so many more new babies than I ever did before Facebook.

Re: Head of Design at Facebook: How Her Team Uses Data To Make Decisions

#16

Post by izaidi »

akd wrote: post #15
izaidi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that the only time Facebook seems to want to offer you any kind of emotional experience is when you're trying to leave the site, and the experience is designed to be a negative one, rooted in guilt.

I find that checking Facebook is almost always an emotional experience. I see so many more new babies than I ever did before Facebook.

Yeah. I'm not denying those kinds of experiences can happen on Facebook, but Facebook the company doesn't seem to care about making its users happier so much as it cares about keeping them on the site. Like network television or any other ad-supported medium, it doesn't need to be really good, it just needs to be minimally diverting. It's about generating addiction and not fulfillment.

Re: Head of Design at Facebook: How Her Team Uses Data To Make Decisions

#17

Post by sasmith »

dnewms wrote: post #14

I wonder how many users visited that deactivation page just to see "x will miss you" once they heard about it, without any intent to deactivate.

Excellent point, but it shouldn't impact an A/B test. Specifically, the experimental and control users should be equally drawn to look at the deactivation page.

However, this could give a false impression of improvement if you just look at the data before and after the launch. It's a good reason to also look at the total number of deactivations / visits to the deactivation page.

Re: Head of Design at Facebook: How Her Team Uses Data To Make Decisions

#18

Post by mwexler »

It's not just enough to have or even "use" data. They carefully chose metrics that matter. In their business model, for example, they saw that photo sharing was a primary driver of longevity and of driving additional usage down the social graph.

Therefore, the metrics where carefully chosen to foster those behaviors. Having a goal and then choosing measure to support it is surprisingly rare, not just among designers, but across businesses.

And just picking things like "Volume sales... and Profit!" as your metrics are kind of specious. Yes, every business wants those, but that just delays the real question: what behaviors by your customers will make that happen for you? And once you think you have those, look for metrics that diagnose that those behaviors are happening, or can help you diagnose why they aren't.

We all have data. Picking useful metrics and linking them, well, that's insight.

Re: Head of Design at Facebook: How Her Team Uses Data To Make Decisions

#19

Post by mayukh »

kurtosis wrote: post #9
snprbob86 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "manipulative", I say "persuasive". Is it manipulative to optimize the tag line on your landing page? You're trying to persuade a visitor to buy your product. Or are you trying to manipulate them to buy your product? The same principal applies to keeping customers. I'd call this manipulative when it becomes disingenuous. For example, had they put actual speech bubbles above my friends' heads and led me to bel…

Well the deactivation page did automatically say that the users "friends" would "miss" them. Did they actually check with these users to see if they would want their image and identity to be used in this way? If not, then it seems pretty disingenuous to me. How do they know that these users will actually miss them? Why is facebook assuming that my friends would not respect my decision to leave facebook if that was th…

>>"Did they actually check with these users to see if they would want their image and identity to be used in this way? "

I think we're waay beyond the point where fb checks with its users on how, where and when it wants to display their content. Sure you can go through their convoluted privacy controls but they'll find a way to do what they want.

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