Social context
Background
Adding friends on Instagram is one of the clearest drivers for overall app retention. When friend recommendations include social context, users are twice as likely to become friends.
When I joined the Friending team, there were only two types of social context shown in suggestions: "number of friends in common" and a generic text string that said "Suggested for you."
Challenge
The UX surrounding social context was inconsistent and didn't properly account for user needs. It truncated key information and made the page look bloated. We needed to simplify the way social context was used in the platform and expand on the types of social context available to users.
Additionally, we wanted to ensure we had a stronger fallback pattern for when our preferred social context couldn't be shown.
Our approach
To ensure that we could simplify our social context patterns while expanding into the information shared with users, our team did the following:
- Audited over 20 unique surfaces in Instagram to build a foundational social context library
- Explored design iterations for visual changes and new new text strings
- A/B tested combinations of 3 separate design iterations and 4 separate copy iterations
- Partnered closely with Legal, Policy, and Design Leadership throughout process
- Identified social context expansion opportunities to support "mutuals" (the most effective form of social context today)
- Aligned with Design Leadership on a single preferred term for all shared connections in Instagram
- Partnered with internationalization team to test and establish preferred translations in locales outside of the US and UK
Outcomes
Through multiple tests and review processes, we created new design principles for both the visuals and copy associated with social context on the platform. Through these changes, we saw statistically significant increases in key Growth metrics (DAU, reciprocal follows, etc.).
Alongside this work, we identified ways to expand existing social context and identified 6 new social context types. Early testing has shown these additional changes yield dramatic increases to key metric goals.
Project samples & additional details
