Helping Facebook users cope with emotional stress caused by offensive content.
Framing the barriers to positive sentiment
Offensive content was impacting Facebook user engagement and brand sentiment, while over-burdening the support function. This phase focused on understanding the reactions to various types of offensive content, their causes and unmet coping needs. We qualitatively engaged users across four continents in journey mapping and projective ethnography, and then quantitatively segmented them based on their unique desires and coping needs. The insight gained was used to develop a framework describing the emotional stages users experience and the barriers to positive brand sentiment. The framework was used to describe the unique reasons why each segment does or does not resolve anxiety.
Identifying solutions to achieve positive sentiment
Barriers to positive brand sentiment were anchored to behavioral economic principles that incorporated levers for coping. Using the levers, we created a series of “how might we…” statements to frame solutioning efforts across existing and potential touchpoints of the user experience. We then facilitated a cross-functional design sprint producing concepts spanning information that Facebook provides to users, the tone in which they communicate, and features to provide users with a greater sense of control. Facebook quickly developed prototypes which we then evaluated with target segments and provided final refinements before they were rolled out across the platform.
Driving implementation across organizational functions
Delivering holistic solutions from the user perspective required changes across marketing, communication, and engineering. We developed a requirements matrix to drive implementation across these functions. Functions were able to work from the same foundation in coordination with each other to deliver solutions that reduce user anxiety and improve brand sentiment.
"Upstream has been a valuable partner in breaking down complex problems into tangible frameworks. They've helped us to more deeply understand our users and have greatly enabled product development and design experiments."
- UX Research, Facebook