Thread by @KuraFire

Live tweets for @CascadeSF’s #GrowthDesignSeries, night 3: Engagement + Metrics + Scaling Quality!

Growth Lessons to Accelerate your Design Career, by Elena Lin
How to Measure Growth, by @robbiedigi
Designing with Data, by @ranliudesign

#YxDesign #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign We start the night with a fireside chat with Elena Lin, who volunteered at @CascadeSF, was a mechanical engineer, hacked her career and is now a Product Designer on Growth at @linkedin.

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn Lin asked herself, “How can I make the most impact with my skills that is also enjoyable?"

She started w/ engineering, but from going to design events in SF she found a passion for the process of envisioning and creating new products. (SAME) #GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn Lin brings up Ikigai, the Japanese concept that means “a reason for being” and is often explained with this great Venn diagram. #GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn I can't remove people cc'd on this thread on either Web or iOS, because @TwitterDesign hate their users I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Apologies to the pals now stuck on this journey with us.

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn @TwitterDesign “The magic in software is that we can just rewrite the software and learn from our mistakes, and change it. A growth mindset just asks that you learn from your mistakes and are willing to improve.” — Elena Lin

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn @TwitterDesign “A lot of what I love about Growth Design, the value of learning from experiments and experiences, is often applicable in life outside of design, too.” — Elena Lin
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn @TwitterDesign “Quality is really accessibility; knowing the limitations and alternative ways that people use your product, and supporting those use cases better, is what makes your product better.” — Elena Lin
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn @TwitterDesign Scaling quality-through-accessibility at LinkedIn is currently being done by a company-wide effort to make every web piece “Grade C” compliant, to get everyone on the same page.
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn @TwitterDesign Q: How did LinkedIn make decisions to separate social, jobs, etc?

A: They've actually found that most activities on LinkedIn work better within the main app, where you have your community with you, so now they're centralizing again.
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn @TwitterDesign LinkedIn's new North Star is their success metrics based on the user getting value out of the platform.
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn @TwitterDesign Now up, @robbiedigi of @intercom on How to Measure Growth!

“To me, this means 'How do people get value out of our product?' And then, 'what do you do with that knowledge?'"
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@cascadesf @robbiedigi @ranliudesign @LinkedIn @TwitterDesign @intercom “All growth can seem complicated, but fundamentally what you want to do is make something people want. Growth is just a tool to help you understand that better.” — @robbiedigi
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Basic “how to measure growth” model:

1. Acquire (downloads)
2. Engage (frequency of use)
3. Retain (retention rate)

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Acquisition was easy but not as valuable; retention in days used per week & weeks in a row were far more valuable and useful metrics than user acquisition. #GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Identify a metric that users actually get value out of, e.g. for Uber, riders per week; for Netflix, >20 minutes watched per session (minimum for an average TV show episode).
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

In this chart of % of signups remaining active over time, what matters less is the height of the curve and more where it flattens out.
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

“Apps that send you notifications like ‘we miss you’ are really just saying, ‘We miss your money!’”

If you measure engagement right, you don't see that much movement & variation in the retention.
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

The product-impact model:

Design product features, that solve customer problems, which drive customer behavior, and (positively) impact business results.
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Growth tends to go backwards, where you start at the end to reverse-engineer the problems leading to the behaviors that aren't optimal for your business, users' behavior, and solving their needs. #GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

“Make something people want” (Paul Graham) is fundamentally just saying, “offer utility.”

Intercom started that simply: a way to communicate with your users. Later, many new (and easier) ways to do this were added, and growth skyrocketed.
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Now up, @ranliudesign with Designing With Data. She opens with:

“Do a little dance,
Make a little chart,
Split-test tonight!”

😂
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

@ranliudesign Ran Liu is UX Designer at @Amplitude_HQ, which helps track user actions in the app, put those actions in a timeline, and lets you build analyses out

They've tracked 7.5 trillion user behavior actions.

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Amplitude's question to us is: are you making use of any of that data?

Appreciation for @calexity:
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

(Quantitative) Data is a lot cheaper than Qualitative Study, but neither is better than the other.

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

You always want both types of data to go hand in hand, and create a feedback & learning cycle:

When seeking Qualitative Data, handpick highly targeted research participants, not just “people in a Starbucks”.

Segment your audience based on their behavior:
- Very active
- Recently churned
- Heavy use but never create content

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

You can segment on:

Lots of people do: Learn, Build, 😶
What you want: Learn, Build, Measure.

And then build a loop!

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Measure feature engagement. Exact numbers of users aren’t always useful here, turn those into percentages of active users.

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Caveat: feature engagement isn't always “the more the better”!

Amplitude has an Engagement Matrix plotting features against # of times vs. # of people. Top right is Most Popular.

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

But you don't want everything in “Most Popular”; some features don't need to be used often (Bottom Right), others are e.g. Power User features (Top Left).

Be conscious about what features you want to exist where in your matrix.

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Bottom Left quadrant is generally the “pay more attention to these” features, but some belong there, like e.g. admin features. Features in Bottom Left may also just not be tested and measured as regularly, e.g. once/quarter instead of monthly. #GrowthDesignSeries

Feature funnels let you measure design effectiveness.
Path analysis helps you uncover interesting user behavior.

“It’s okay, I’m also overwhelmed by this!”

#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

The green box in the second pic is "User profiles, view hover" which showed that users overwhelmingly started on this new screen by hovering over user profiles that weren't an important part of the design & layout at all.
#GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

Data such as pathfinder analyses help you pick highly targeted users, evaluate design success, and uncover interesting behaviors. #GrowthDesignSeries #YxGrowthDesign

To close tonight’s live tweets: check out these great sketch notes by @calexity!

@calexity Live tweets for the final night of @cascadesf's #GrowthDesignSeries continue here, covering User Activation + Onboarding + Notifications:

https://twitter.com/KuraFire/status/1157106151823048704