8 Insights From My Time at Meta as a Product Designer

In 2021, I landed an extraordinary opportunity as a product designer at Meta, a company that creates products on a massive scale with significant social impact. During my time, I gained valuable insights into solving complex problems and navigating ambiguous situations while catering to diverse user needs. Here are eight key takeaways that have influenced my approach to product design.

Disclaimer: The opinions presented here are my own and don’t necessarily reflect how Meta operates.

1. Strive to adhere to the design system, but know when to break it

Adhering to the design system is crucial because it provides a consistent and cohesive framework for the overall design. It ensures that every element of the design works seamlessly together, making the process faster and more efficient so designers do not have to recreate the same component every time they design a new feature.

While adhering to the design system is essential, it is equally important to understand that a design system is a continually growing library. As you design, there may be times when the design system does not have the component you are looking for. In those cases, it is a welcome opportunity to consider expanding the design system library.

Before creating new components, here are several things to consider:

Is the new component solving a problem that cannot be solved by the current pattern? Do not overlook existing components and consider the broader context. Evaluate how the new version of the component would add value to users.

Does it meet user and business needs across many use cases? Can this component be scaled beyond the current project? At the design system level, each component should be functional on a platform-wide basis.

Does the component align with the needs of the users? In what ways does it enhance the user’s experience by making it simpler? The emphasis should be on functionality rather than trendy or visually appealing features.

2. Harness the power of storytelling

Sharing presentations with a wider team is an effective way to communicate important information. This typically takes the form of a PowerPoint deck. To give a great presentation, you need to really capture your audience’s attention with a clear story shared in a memorable way.

Tips for giving an effective presentation:

Start with an outline: Before creating your presentation, outline your core message. This way, you can better understand the flow of the presentation and determine what content needs to be added, omitted, or reordered. You can insert the outline onto the presenter notes to help you deliver a confident presentation.

Tell a story instead of explaining the process: Rather than listing out facts and figures, try telling a story that resonates with your audience. A good story can help create an emotional connection and make it easier for your audience to remember the key points of the presentation.

Have one main point for each slide: Less is more. Keep it simple by focusing on one idea at a time. Busy slides may cause your audience to feel overwhelmed and lose interest. Instead, present your ideas in a clear and concise manner, using visuals and examples to support your messages.

Have fun: Remember that presenting is an opportunity to share your ideas and knowledge with others. It’s a chance to engage with your audience and show your passion for your work. So, have fun with it!

3. Instead of seeking quick fixes, focus on long-term sustainability

Quick fixes or shortcuts may temporarily boost certain metrics, but they often fail to promote long-term success. In fact, they may lead to a decrease in user engagement and even harm the reputation of the product in the long run.

It is essential to prioritize user experience and product quality by investing in user research, testing, and ongoing product improvement. By doing this, you can create a product that not only meets immediate user needs but also delivers long term value. This leads to increased customer satisfaction, improved retention, and a stronger brand reputation.

4. Address ambiguity through early prototyping

As a designer, addressing ambiguity is one of the critical challenges that we face. At Meta, our design challenges are intended for a diverse global audience with varying cultures, needs, and backgrounds, which makes it difficult to pinpoint the root problem with certainty.

Therefore, designers must create early prototypes and sketches of potential solutions to establish a vision that promotes team alignment and clarity. Through continuous iteration and feedback sessions, the team can refine the solutions to create effective designs.

5. Leverage design thinking techniques to drive effective cross-functional collaboration

Product designers are responsible for establishing a shared vision across functional teams, aligning stakeholder expectations, and developing a collaborative design process that involves cross-functional stakeholders.

A design thinking process is a user-centric approach to problem-solving that involves empathizing with users, defining problems, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing.

To effectively navigate ambitious projects, designers facilitate workshops with key stakeholders to define project scope, brainstorm knowns and unknowns, identify people’s problems, and evaluate long term and short term impacts. This ensures the team focuses on the right problems and the most promising opportunities.

6. Team feedback is indispensable

Feedback is an integral part of the design process. At Meta, the design teams have weekly design critique sessions to share our work with the objective of enhancing design and achieving better outcomes.

During the critique session, all members of the design team, including content designers, UX researchers, design managers and other product designers within the pillar, participate in the session. Product designers present their work at various stages. The feedback session provides an opportunity to discuss design from different perspectives, identify areas for improvement, and share best practices.

Creating a culture of collaboration and open feedback enables us to develop better products that meet the needs of our diverse user base. We believe that feedback not only improves design, but also elevates us as designers and as a team.

7. UX Researchers contribute significantly to product strategy, not limited to research responsibilities

User Researchers (UXR) play a vital role in shaping the product strategy at Meta right from the initial stage of the project. This stands in stark contrast to other companies where I have previously worked, where UXRs are usually involved only after prototypes are ready for testing. However, at Meta, UXRs are tasked with executing early research and also have a pivotal role in driving the product strategy from the beginning of the project scoping process alongside product managers.

UXRs are key partners with Data Scientists, responsible for guiding the team to ask the right questions and thoroughly explore the problem space to ensure that the team focuses on solving the right issues.

8. Ensure clear documentation

When working on long-term, complex projects involving cross-functional teams and multiple stakeholders, it is essential to maintain clear documentation that details the project’s progress, including its goals, people problems, design iterations, and key milestones.

Clear documentation ensures that the team members are up-to-date with the project’s progress, mitigating costly communication gaps, and ensuring that all stakeholders remain aligned on the project’s objective.