Role:
Solo learning project (product, UX, content design)
Timeline:
1 week product sprint (July 2022)
TL;DR
Problem: Strava athletes want a way to connect/share contact info with people post-activity.
Process: Through primary + secondary research, I found that users wanted a feature to be mindful of privacy and connected to activities. I user tested multiple prototypes and iterated based off of data.
Solution: I landed upon private comments as the solution because it offered a balance of privacy, integration, and conversation.
Results: 90% of Strava users said they would use this feature if it was live. I cold emailed this case study to the Staff Product Designer at Strava and got positive feedback on both my analysis, design thinking, and learned that Strava’s exploring similar solutions in the space!
Note: As of 2023, Strava has introduced direct messaging as a part of their product. This was done prior to this change.
PROBLEM
Users have no way of further connecting + sharing contact info after group activities 😔
My attempt to reach out to a fellow cyclist (circa Feb 2022)
Out of personal experience + talking with other users of Strava, users have trouble connecting with/contact people that they’ve met post-activity. Oftentimes, people, like me, resort to posting a public comment with their phone number (not safe) or stalking social media profiles (which is weird too). Without a DM feature on Strava, can Strava implement a feature to connect people while addressing users’ concerns around safety and the app being too social?
SOLUTION
Have an ability to send private comments 🤩
80% of cyclists who I surveyed said that when they want to reach out to someone, it is within 24 hours of meeting them on a ride. This shows that people are often considering reaching out soon after + because of meeting someone on a ride. Thus driving the decision to implement this as a comment and lean into the recency + time proximity to the event.
Private comments can only be sent between mutual followers to reduce unsolicited messages
Tooltips to educate users on the function of Private comments + a direct link to access settings
Integration within comments to reduce UI clutter
The static state of private comments will always be off, users will have to turn it on each time to send a private comment. This is to make sure users are making the conscious choice to send a private comment each time.
How would this integrate with public comments? 🧐
Private comments will always be grouped together at the top of comments section with public comments placed below. This is to mimic the idea of a thread or conversation between two people. This also allows Strava to continue to use the look + feel of their reply function which essentially @s a user without building in a whole new reply feature.
ISSUES WITH PRIVATE MESSAGES
People are concerned about privacy + the further socialization of the app
On top of secondary user feedback, the sheer cost + effort of developing a chat system and maintaining it most likely isn’t in Strava’s best interest (focus-wise and monetarily). Another kicker is if Strava were to launch a messaging feature, it would be reasonable to presume people would be disappointed by its lack possible lack of features compared to more established apps (FB Messenger, WhatsApp, etc.). Last point, messaging brings up possible misuse by users. Ensuring user safety, possible harassment, etc. is not impossible, but a large undertaking.
EXPLORING OTHER POSSIBILITIES
How about shareable contacts or the ability to link social media accounts into Strava?
Shareable Contacts
This is essentially the idea of enabling people to click a “share contact” button to give another user a form of contact.
Pros:
Complex to integrate different contact options
Could be unsolicited or need context for why
Cons:
Simplicity of a “one click” sharing process
Takes less clutter than comments or DMs
Linking Social Media
This option would enable users to link social media to their Strava profile (think how Tinder allows users to link Spotify or Instagram). The user can take the reaching out + messaging from there.
Pros:
Natural place to find contact/social info
No need to wait on a reply (less friction)
Cons:
Privacy concerns around sharing info + need for context
Not all users will want to/know to link social media
BUSINESS IMPACT
Increasing in-app engagement + user experience
From a business or objective standpoint, Strava should implement this because it relieves a pain point within an athlete’s lifecycle. People use Strava to share, track, and interact with friends. Why not make that an end-to-end experience. By addressing this need, users feel accounted for and listened to. Happier users = more loyalty + a stickier product + higher possibility of upgrading to a subscription. I also explored including this in paid Strava, but this feature doesn’t fit into the performance/tracking bucket of paid Strava.
FUTURE TESTING
Understanding how users interact with private comments + what they use it for.
If I were to test this feature viability, I would consider doing real world usability testing to see what they use private comments for and how they use it. Some questions could include:
Researching how often they use private comments vs. public comments when given a live product to use.
Do users understand the functionality of private comments? Are they getting stuck at a tooltip? Are they using it in ways they’re not supposed to? Both of which could affect the content design of tooltips and education around the feature.
How many private comments are reported for breaking rules (harassment, privacy, etc.) compared to public comments? Essentially, does the availability of private comments incentivize more inappropriate comments?
WHAT I LEARNED
The value of pinpointing 📌 a problem, crowd sourcing feedback, and designing holistically with constraints.
Always starting with why: From the beginning, I had established a clear problem that I wanted to solve - How to enable Strava athletes to connect and share contact information in the app. This acted as a guiding point throughout the entire process and enabled me to stay grounded the problem at hand.
Crowd sourcing feedback: Being a cyclists and avid Strava user myself, I felt as if I had a good grip on how users interacted with the product + what user needs were. When working on this case, I chose to follow some of my intuition but lean into collecting feedback from channels of dedicated users such as my local bike club slack (~900 members), Reddit, friends, and even designers at Strava.
Designing holistically + w/constraints: Even though this case study was quite a small feature within the general app of Strava, I attempted to understand not only how this feature was as a standalone product, but how it would interact with the UI of comments/the rest of Strava’s interface. I worked with constraints such as using Strava’s existing design language (toggle switches, buttons, etc.) and understanding how it would fit into Strava’s business and drive impact (think users, revenue, premium subscriptions).
Revisiting the case study: A few weeks after completing the first sprint of creating the case study, I decided to revisit it with a fresh pair of eyes. This allowed me to see design mistakes/oversights that I hadn’t seen before and address them with more user interviews and feedback loops. You can see some of my new design changes here.
I also posted my case study to Strava’s reddit thread to understand user sentiment! Talk about crowdsourcing some feedback :)
WORKING PROTOTYPE
FUTURE DESIGN CHANGES
Making the private comments toggle collapsible and not as a primary/static feature.
Note: These are changes that I’ve explored after publishing the original case study and thus are not included in the prototype UI + flows shown above. Think of them as a retrospective addition or revisitation of the original project.
Some design feedback that I got that was really insightful was “Should the private comments toggle be a static option/primary option? Does that detract from the process of sending a comment?”
I asked interviewees if public comments would be the primary function and if private comments would be a secondary action (used less). The unanimous answer was that users would use public comments more than private comments, and private comments should be a secondary feature.
I began exploring ways where I could make the private comment option a secondary action compared to a primary action (sending a comment). I landed upon a collapsible/expandable toggle that allowed it to be hidden + looked at. This way, I could add less clutter and distraction to the comment process, but still allow users to access private comments easily.
When a user selects to toggle on private comments, I made the design decision to have the feature move up to a static standing above the text box. I chose to design this way to reinforce to users that they sending a private comment, rather than having it collapse away completely. For example, if it collapsed away after selection, how would users know if private comments was active or not?
Update: Simplifying, reducing overall movement, changing toggle visuals
When I sent the flow above to users of Strava, they gave feedback saying that there was too much movement and that they wanted a new toggle that signified on/off better.
Things that I changed:
Edited the collapsible private comments option to move up and down only, to reduce movement, simplify animations.
Changed the toggle from Strava’s circle dot to a more common sliding toggle (which was also copied from Strava’s design language for consistency).
Moved the “i” tool tip indicator to sit with the feature name to group them for clarity.
Update 2: Considering a static toggle with less complexity + movement.
I went back to interviewees and got feedback on the second iteration that the collapsible/expandable toggle was overly designed and the movement was too distracting. I opted for a static toggle below the comment input to keep it discoverable, but also subdued (secondary function to entering a comment).