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How would you improve Facebook tagging?

Asked at Meta (Facebook)
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I'd start answering this Facebook product improvement question by asking clarifying questions.

Clarifying questions:

  1. Why do we want to improve FB tagging feature? Is there a decrease in usage of tagging feature? Or increase in number of people untagging themselves? People find it annoying to tag others or when tagged by others? Privacy concerns etc.? display issues - too much of tagging causes clutter when user clicks on image? I assume there has been decline in usage of tagging feature
  2. Does it include hashtags or only FB tagging? Only FB tagging
  3. What is the objective of improvement? acquistion, engagement or monetization? I would assume increase Engagement
  4. Anything specific we want to improve? i.e. increase number of tags per post, reduce number of untags per post?  I would assume increase number of posts with tags
  5. Improve it for Web or APP or both? Both
  6. Mobile or desktop or both? Both
  7. Any constraints in terms of time and resources? None

Product Description and FB mission alignment

Facebook tagging allows users to tag their friends on different types of posts. This creates a link to their friends' profile. Tagging helps user get attention of her/his friends and allows friends and friends of friends to react, comment, like user's posts. It brings people together and increases engagement. This is completely inline with FB's mission of bringing people together and giving them tools to create community. 

Product Goal

Since FB already has a huge user base I would assume awareness and adoption is not an issue. I would therefore focus on increasing engagement with the goal of increasing average number of tags per post.

Users

  1. Post creators and commentors:  General users/ Business pages / Advertisers / Influencers
    • who use tagging feature to tag others
    • who do not to use tagging feature
  2. Those who are getting tagged: General users, Pages 
    • can allow posts to be displayed on their timeline
    • can untag themselves
  3. Viewers: 
    • can view and give reactions to tagged posts; 
    • can visit timeline of those who are tagged by clicking on their names on photos, posts etc.

Here I would like to focus on General users who create posts and comments and specifically those who are not using tagging feature. The reason I choose general post creators is because compared to other post creators this is a bigger segment, also post creators are the ones who are likely to have better motivation than post viewers to tag people in images, posts etc at the time of post creation itself. Also, I would assume post creators and commentors would personally know the people whose images, videos they are posting or commenting upon.

Pain points for prioritized user segement

  1. I am not sure if I should tag people in my post, images etc. as some people do not like being tagged
  2. I have received some untag requests in past so I feel demotivated to tag others
  3. I may tag but do not like tagging on images as tagging creates clutter on top of an image
  4. I do not like being tagged or tag others due to privacy reasons for example, I dont like friends of friends visiting my timeline or profile
  5. I feel soemtimes it's extra effort in tagging people, specially if an image has lot of people in it
Out of these, I would prioritize pain points 3 and 5. Primarily because the potential to motivate a user to tag exists most here. Also, with regards to pain points 2 and 4, there are already some solutions existing to manage privacy concerns of users
 
Solutions
  1. Selective display of tags on images: Do not display all tags at once when user hovers over an image, specially for images with lot of people. Only when pointer is on face of a specific person then display that person's name.  User Impact: High vs Effort: Low 
  2. Tag name suggester: Before posting an image user can be shown name of that person (using facial recognition) with an option to tag. User Impact: High vs Effort: Low 
  3. Tag prompts: User can be prompted names of his/her friends with whom user shares common interest when posting or sharing articles related to news, school, community etc. User Impact: High vs Effort: Medium (it will be difficult to identify whom to tag, some set of rules will be required - such as past interactions, common pages, groups etc.) 
  4. Auto tagger: Introduce a feature that help users to automatically identify and tag people in an image. After user selects an image, user is given an option to run 'auto tagger' that will identify most people in the images and assing a tag to them.  User Impact: High vs Effort: Medium/High (some effort will be required to ensure that feature is recognizes faces in an image with precision otherwise user might end up removing lot of incorrect tags) 
  5. Voice based tag assistant: voice based assistant to help tag people in images and posts. User Impact: Medium vs Effort: High (high effort required so will ignore this solution)

 

I would prioritze solutions 1 (Selective display of tags) and 2 (Tag name suggester) for the MVP, as these are quick wins with low effort and high user impact. I would also focus on 3 (Tag prompts) as it covers other types of posts other than images.

Metrics

  1. Primary metrics: Increase in average number of posts with tags  (D/W/M) 
  2. Average number of posts with tags per user (also measure if this increases D/W/M)
  3. Increase in number of likes, share, reactions, comments on posts with tags (D/W/M) 
  4. Increase in number of posts (D/W/M) 
  5. Number of posts created using solutions 1 and 2 (D/W/M) 
Summary
To improve tagging feature with the objective of increasing , I would focus on general post creators who do not use tagging feature while creating posts. To motivate such users I suggest we features such as selective tag display on images and name suggester for tagging. Also, I would measure the success by tracking increase average number of posts with tags on a D/W/M basis.
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To begin with, I will clarify the ask:

  • What are the current challenges with FB tagging?
  • Has there been a decrease in usage of FB tagging? If yes, for how long, for whom all, and in which region?
  • Are we looking to improve this feature in mobile or web or both?
Key assumptions I am going to make:
  • There has been a dip in usage of FB tagging feature across users of both web and mobile. 
The scope of the case at hand: To improve the tagging feature for FB mobile & web applications. 
Product goal: Improve engagement metrics. In other words the goal of this feature improvement aligns with FB's larger goal of superior engagement. 
 
Classifying the users and identifying one specific user group:
  • Individuals who post content. 
  • Companies/businesses who post content. 
  • Government/Regulatory bodies who post relevant information bulletins. 
  • Individuals/Organizations/Businesses who get tagged in a post or comment. 
Of the three, I will select the first group - individuals who post content on FB ; I do this as FB is the preffered site for most content creators and individual posters. Businesses and Organizations may choose LinkedIn or Twitter. 
 
After identifying the target user group, I articulate the solution for addressing the key pain points:
 
Pain points:
  • Identifying the right person to tag takes time - the user needs to browse through the entire list of friends currently.
  • Not able to tag a specific part of the picture - results in wrong tagging.
  • Privacy concerns - both to the person being tagged and the person who is tagging. 
Solution:
  1. Have a feature for identifying face/faces within a group photo. 
  2. Incorporate options for enhanced privacy within the tagging feature - 
    1. Only mutual friends can see tags. 
    2. Recipient has the option to reject tags. (targets the recipient but will go a long way in building trust). 
    3. The original poster can restrict specific individuals from viewing tags. 
  3. Simplify the process of searching through friend list for tagging - auto suggest will be helpful. 
The impact of these solutions can be articulated as follows:
1 & 3 - Increases frequency of usage, improves user experience. 
2 - Improves user experience. 
By developing the solution at hand, we target improvement in DAU, WAU, & MAU. 
In sum, we begin by seeking clarifications on the problem statement and making important assumptions. Next, we identify the user groups and choose one user segment. Thirdly, we identify pain points and articulate the solutions. Fourthly, we evaluate the impact of this solution and identify the key metrics will track. 
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