Facebook on TV
Project Overview
Goal
I was tasked with leading a scrappy product team to help Facebook Video discover new opportunities on new platforms, including TV. Our goal was to create a premium viewing experience for millions of daily active users by seamlessly integrating short-form user-generated content with long-form content and discovering new platform opportunities.
Scope
Despite being a small product team, we were responsible for impacting millions of daily active users. My role as lead designer included defining the product vision and scaling the product to achieve our ambitious goals.
Timeline
Jul. 2019 – Jan. 2021
Role
As a visionary, I pioneered the product's direction, influenced strategic decisions, and ensured seamless scalability. I also mentored team members and collaborated across various departments to bring the project to fruition.
Problem
Context
Facebook had created a new org pillar called New Experiences (NX) with the ambitious goal of discovering new platform opportunities. Despite having created a lineup of Facebook originals, Facebook Video wasn’t getting the desired traction. They leaned on our team to fix that, perceiving TV as the user’s preferred destination for this content. However, integrating short-form user-generated content with long-form content without compromising the user experience presented a challenge. The team had been around for a year and a half without design support.
Challenges
As the design leader, I faced several challenges, including:
Increasing user cohort to learn and iterate quickly
Discovering opportunities for content not normally known for the platform (i.e., short-form video on TV)
Delivering a 10x half-over-half improvement in engagement with a small engineering team of only four engineers
Stakeholders
Director of Product for Facebook Video
Design Director for Facebook Video
Product Marketing
Core Product team (ENG, PM)
Legal
Partnerships
Research & Discovery
User Research
Through a series of in-person interviews, diary studies, focus groups, and usability testing, we learned that users' biggest challenges were finding videos to watch, creating an extended viewing session, and the overall usability of the product. We also discovered that Live content was a huge driver for desired use but was challenging to find in the app.
Design Principles
To address these challenges, we came up with the strategy of “Effortless Entertainment,” which included:
Instant Entertainment: Making it as easy as possible to find and hop right into the content you enjoy
Continuous Entertainment: Throughout the experience, there shouldn't be moments where users aren't entertained
Design Process
Hypothesis
If we allowed Facebook Watch viewers to be effortlessly entertained with video curation and seamless mobile to TV experiences, they would enjoy their content on the device with the best viewing experience.
KPIs
Our key performance indicators (KPIs) were to increase Facebook Watch on TV watch time and increase Facebook Watch casting.
Ideation
As a seasoned product designer, I am an expert in ideation techniques and have a proven track record of coming up with innovative ideas. During this project, I ran a series of brainstorming sessions with the team to develop three distinct milestones. I leveraged my ability to quickly synthesize ideas and generate new ones to uncover the best content and experiences we could provide on the TV medium. My ideation process was highly collaborative, and I worked closely with the product and engineering teams to ensure that our ideas were both technically feasible and met our product goals
Sketching/Wireframing
After our ideation sessions, I took the top themes and ideas and created simple wireframes. I leveraged my extensive experience in designing for multiple platforms, including mobile, TV, and web, to create wireframes that accurately reflected the product vision. My wireframes were instrumental in guiding our discussions and taking the top ideas to higher fidelity. I collaborated closely with the product team, ensuring that our designs met our product goals and stayed true to our vision.
Iterations
I have a deep understanding of the iterative design process and the value it provides to product design. Throughout this project, I created a series of iterations in response to internal feedback and user research. I leveraged my ability to quickly iterate on designs and gather feedback from a variety of stakeholders to ensure that our product was always improving. I worked closely with the product team to prioritize our design changes, ensuring that we were always working towards our product goals.
Prototypes
I am highly experienced in creating prototypes that accurately reflect the final product. For this project, I took the strongest ideas from our ideation sessions and created prototypes that worked on TV. I used a combination of tricks, including setting up my computer to work with a Roku remote and using HDMI cables to put the experience on the TV. This ensured that our research participants experienced the real TV experience as it was meant to be experienced. My prototypes were instrumental in helping us validate our ideas and gather feedback from users.
User Testing
As a user-centered designer, I understand the importance of user testing in the design process. I conducted a series of user testing sessions, using our prototypes to gather feedback from our target audience. I leveraged my ability to quickly synthesize user feedback and iterate on designs to ensure that our product met our user's needs. Through our user testing sessions, we were able to validate our product ideas and make data-driven design decisions.
Final Solutions
Our team developed three distinct milestones to learn about the best content and experiences we could provide on the TV medium.
Milestone 1:
Grow Userbase
To start, we developed a logged-out experience that helped us grow our funnel and provide instant entertainment to our users. This allowed users to test out the experience instead of being hit with a login screen.
Milestone 2:
Effortless Entertainment V1
After we increased our userbase, we improved our instant entertainment vision by introducing the miniplayer, which allowed for a watch and browse experience. We also introduced content curation, which enabled people to effortlessly create long-form sessions from short-form content.
Milestone 3:
Effortless Entertainment V2
With our userbase growing and our continuous metric wins, we pushed forward with the second part of our vision, Effortless Entertainment. We achieved this by introducing content curations and a familiar TV user interface.
Results & Impact
Metrics
We ran a series of tests to build toward our vision, and half over half, each of our tests improved metrics by 2-10% in watch time and engagement. Our approach combined the familiarity of the mobile experience with the traditional TV viewing experience, delivering an unparalleled viewing experience for our audience.
Lessons Learned
Working on this project taught me the importance of aligning on expectations early with leadership and taking risks. When working on a product that spans across multiple platforms like AppleTV, HTML5, and mobile, balancing engineering quality is important when rapidly testing innovations.
Qualitative Feedback
After carefully evaluating our process and gathering feedback from small business owners, product managers, engineers, and senior leadership, we crafted a clear vision for bringing Facebook Watch to TV. Our approach began with building a unique log-out experience, which was a first for our company, in order to deliver on our vision of effortless entertainment. Collaborating with partners and internal curators, we created curated collections of content that were translated into "channels" designed for seamless scrolling. This approach combined the familiarity of the mobile experience with the traditional TV viewing experience, delivering an unparalleled viewing experience for our audience.
Leadership & Strategy
Collaboration
Collaborating with Product, Design, and Engineering, as well as legal and partnerships, was essential to the success of this project. As the lead designer, I took a proactive approach in fostering strong working relationships with all stakeholders to ensure a smooth and efficient workflow. I was instrumental in creating the strategy for the team, taking the team from a test-to-test working model to one where we built out a vision and point of view and tested within it. I worked closely with product, design, and engineering leadership to introduce innovative strategies like the logged-out experience and content curation not just to TV, but to the video organization as a whole.
Strategy
As the lead designer, I played a critical role in creating the overall strategy for the project. I worked closely with product, design, and engineering leadership to develop a clear vision and point of view for the team. I advocated for innovative strategies like the logged-out experience and content curation to be implemented not just to TV but to the entire video organization. I took a proactive approach to testing and iteration, moving the team from a test-to-test working model to one where we built out a comprehensive vision and tested within it.
Thought Leadership
During the project, I provided valuable thought leadership to the organization. I created a series of notes and internal workplace documents outlining how to run effective brainstorms and critiques, which became the foundation for how the team approached these activities going forward. I also introduced the concept of "Effortless Entertainment" to the entire organization in partnership with my PM, which emphasized the importance of creating a seamless and continuous viewing experience for users. My contributions in this area helped shape the direction of the organization's product strategies, and my expertise was valued and respected by my colleagues.