dynamic visibility
Drove transparent feedback across teams
- Company
- OnLoop
- Role
- Design Lead
- Category
- Mobile App
- Year
- 2023
Dynamic Visibility enhances team culture by promoting open celebration and private improvement, enabling users to share wins publicly while receiving feedback in a psychologically safe way.
The Vision: Transforming Team Engagement in the Workplace
Dynamic Visibility was designed to empower teams in a way that encouraged teamwide celebration and visibility. The goal was to enable users to celebrate their own achievements and their peers’ contributions openly, while also supporting constructive improvement discussions in a private, psychologically safe manner. This feature aimed to strengthen team dynamics, improve feedback culture, and drive engagement across our platform.
Our key success metrics for this feature included:
- Engagement Growth:
Increase Daily Active Users (DAU) by 30% within one quarter and Monthly Active Users (MAU) by 50% within two quarters.
- Adoption Rates:
Achieve 30% of active users sharing publicly within the first two quarters.
- Retention Metrics:
Maintain a Weekly Active Users to Monthly Active Users (WAU/MAU) ratio of 50% or above to indicate consistent engagement.
Bridging Transparency And Safety
Feedback is vital for team development in the workplace, yet it can be challenging to create a system that supports both transparency and privacy. Based on conversations with external users, we identified two primary needs:
Managers: Needed better visibility into their teams’ progress, collaboration, and achievements to advocate for and support their teams effectively.
Individual Contributors: Wanted a way to showcase their successes and celebrate their peers’ work, while maintaining a safe space for receiving constructive feedback.
The solution required a thoughtful approach to addressing these needs without compromising trust. Public sharing of “Celebrate” captures was designed to encourage visibility and foster team morale. For more sensitive “Improve” captures, sharing was limited to private channels, preserving psychological safety.
Designing for Scalability and Success
Dynamic Visibility presented unique challenges from both a user experience and technical standpoint:
Informed by Competitive Research
To ensure our solution was both user-friendly and aligned with industry standards, we conducted competitive research and analysis. This involved exploring how other team development tools handled feedback sharing and team visibility, allowing us to adopt proven strategies rather than reinventing the wheel. Insights from this research informed key design decisions, such as default sharing behaviors and the overall structure of the feature.
Expanding a Limited Design System
As an early-stage startup, our design system was still evolving, and many components needed for this feature didn’t exist. I designed new, reusable components, ensuring they aligned with our brand’s visual style. These additions not only supported this feature but also enhanced the scalability of the design system for future projects.
Accommodating Legacy Data
Older feedback entries posed another challenge, as they were created before this feature existed. We needed a scalable solution that allowed users to retroactively update their sharing settings without disrupting workflows. This required designing intuitive UX flows and collaborating closely with engineers to navigate database constraints.
Streamlining Default Sharing Options
To reduce friction and align with user intent, I made the decision to set the default sharing option to “public” for Celebrate captures and “private” for Improve captures. This design choice ensured that users could seamlessly share positive feedback while safeguarding sensitive feedback, promoting psychological safety. It also simplified the user experience by reflecting common user preferences without requiring additional steps.
Tight Collaboration with Engineering
To address technical feasibility, I worked hand-in-hand with engineers to clarify interactions and edge cases, ensuring nothing fell through the cracks. Regular walkthroughs and proactive communication helped identify potential blockers early, enabling us to deliver a robust solution.
Dynamic Visibility exceeded expectations across key metrics:
35%
Increase in Daily Active User (DAU) in 1 quarter post launch.
54%
Increase in Monthly Active User (MAU) in 2 quarters post launch.
38%
Users shared captures publicly, surpassing our 30% target.
Reflection: balancing innovation and practicality
Designing Dynamic Visibility was a rewarding challenge, highlighting the importance of balancing user needs with technical feasibility. Creating scalable solutions for legacy data and expanding the design system taught me the value of thoughtful, reusable design.
The close collaboration with engineers was particularly impactful. By working as a cohesive team, we were able to solve complex problems and deliver a feature that meaningfully improved the user experience.
The success of Dynamic Visibility reaffirmed the power of focusing on both transparency and safety, helping teams thrive in an environment that values their contributions.