Facebook Composer Redesign

About the project

In 2015, I was the lead researcher on a comprehensive redesign of the Facebook app's posting flow, reflecting the company's focus on enabling original posts. Notably, the resulting design still persists today, which is nearly unheard of in mobile app design.

The challenge was to increase the number of content types available to post while reducing the complexity of an already bloated icon set. Given the burgeoning options, leadership was concerned about the paradox of choice, an idea that having too many options can overwhelm and lead to user inaction or abandonment. They wanted to know the optimal number of options that could be incorporated without leading to detrimental effects.

The project comprised of the following tasks:

• Determine the ideal entry point
• Design the composer flow
• Create an extensible platform future-proofed for more options
• Prevent the paradox of choice

Project results

‍Paradox of choice. Through scrutinizing the existing literature, I was able to shift leadership's focus away from concern about the paradox of choice, instead highlighting the need to support efficient visual search and spatial memory in the UI. ‍

Composer Flow. Through several rounds of small-N studies, we revealed a stereotyped sequence of actions users took as they composed a post. This sequence was then validated across a sample of 1M+ users, which enabled design to use that insight to shape the flow and created a foundational insight for the company. ‍

Future-proofing. From literature review and my human factors expertise, we arrived at a simple vertical menu design. This enabled a UI possessed obvious labels for novices (vs. the previous icon row), quickly scannable, and extensible. As mentioned, the resulting design still persists today, which is a testament to how successfully it achieved the project's aims and continues to serve users needs.