UIE Web App Master’s Tour – Seattle, Washington – May 23, 2011
Facebook likes the start-up culture. They believe in small teams: photos, engagement, etc. Each team is treated like a small company with a product designer, researcher, engineers & a product manager.
Facebook uses data to form a lot of the decisions that are made. Data helps understand how users use product and how they can be optimized.
Facebook had great ideas, built products and then left them to move on to the next thing.
Photos
Were using an old photo uploader tool built in Java, didn’t work well and was poorly designed. Built their own tool, which required a plugin. Tested it and only 34% users successfully uploaded photos. Went back to the drawing board. Research showed that people were bailing at the plugin install step.