Listen Together
Design as exploration at Meta
Context
Remote Presence
Meta’s Remote Presence (RP) team focused on synchronous experiences founded on three main pillars: People (avatars/representations), Places (environments, wallpapers, and worlds) and Activities (things to do together).
While RP spanned platforms and devices, this project was focused on the Messenger app for iOS mobile experiences.
This was the first third-party (3P) expansion into other activities since launching the flagship experience “Watch Together” in 2020.
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In order to secure additional resources and support for more 3P partnerships, my team needed to demonstrate how co-activities could scale to other types of content libraries.
The problem
We can't lift and shift
iOS devices prioritize first-party input over 3P sound, resulting in frequent content dimming. Though this was not functionally different from Watch Together, internal testing revealed concerns about poor audio quality and user experience.
Audio mitigations were added as a rollout requirement.
My role
Ownership and partnership
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In place of product design resourcing, I carried explorations through product design reviews.
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I worked closely with my engineering lead to understand technical possibilities and limitations.
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I partnered with my UXR teammate to draft research questions and concepts.​
Explorations
All explorations were existing design patterns across Meta’s family of apps, but not necessarily used in RP experiences. We decided to test a range of options that required similar engineering effort and could offer unique UXR insights. Options were initially considered as individual solutions before some were proposed in tandem with others.
Research
Findings
In-depth user interviews (n=48) conducted via Zoom by third-party Anthro-tech researchers and observed by Meta team.
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All participants reported multitasking while on a call.
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Over half of the participants said they naturally reach for headphones at some point during a call.
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All but two participants expected content to pause or lower when someone was speaking.
Outcome
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Armed with research insights and experiment data, our team was able to confidently present mitigation options that offered helpful guidance to our users and addressed leadership concerns.
Lessons
What I learned
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Contributing at the “structure” layer of content design challenged my creativity and deepened my toolset for unearthing user needs.
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Seeing my work as a catalyst for UXR built my confidence as a thought leader on my product team.
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My established rapport with teammates allowed me to move quickly without constantly advocating for my role.