How do you make Facebook Gaming Fan Groups (GFG) feel more like…well, gaming groups? Or, put another way: how do we make content feel more organized, like Discord’s channels?
Simple: we turn Facebook’s Topics into plink-like channels.
Only, it wasn’t that simple.
This was a collaborative effort across the Gaming Video and Creator Segments teams to jump through many other team’s hoops and get alignment on testing this new hashtag/channel concept for gamers.
THE PROBLEM
How do we encourage admins to pin topics to the top of their group so that their members can find content that’s relevant and increase engagement within the group? And how do we not confuse other members with this new setup?
THE SOLUTION
Create an onboarding NUX to encourage gaming group admins to learn the new possibilities that Topics as Channels can provide their group.
We focused on “pinning topics” to avoid introduction of a new term and concept like “channels.”
We created a quick promotion that led into a NUX that guided admins in creating hashtags (if they’ve never created any before), or if they’ve already created hashtags, then they have the option to pin any right away within the NUX.
Value props included:
A new way to navigate around your group and make it easier for members to find content (ie. A content-first navigation system)
Emphasize the power of pinning and having more admin control over which topics get seen first by members (and better organization).
Rooms, chats and posts are at the topic level now.
We started off with a quick promotion to grab a group admin’s attention.
Then we laid out all the values. We worked closely with our illustration team to convey hashtags, but also keeping a gamer attitude and feel to the image.
We had to communicate in the settings plink what would happen to their group menu if they wanted to turn their topics into navigational plinks (ie. channels).
Due to Topics team logic, mental models and rules, we were limited in that new pinned topics had to have at least one post with it. (You can’t have empty topics/empty channels.)
To work around this, my designer and I had to be conscious of existing information architecture and button patterns to make sure users knew what they were getting into — that they had to create a post first.
We added a tooltip to visually guide admins to see the difference they made after finishing the NUX.
We also created a tooltip for members, so they could see this new change that their group admin implemented.
What about Rooms and Chats? We had to be conscious that these pieces of content would also show up in these new “channels” if they were attached to a topic.
Null state for Rooms and Chats with “Create” buttons.
We also had to account for group searches, and how content would be handled with the new channel logic.
Per the Search Team’s feedback, we had to make it clear to users that the content they were seeing belonged to the group.
And if they wanted to create a post, chat, or room of their own right on this screen, then it had to be explicitly clear that they were creating content within the group, and not for anyone to see in a public Facebook search. (Privacy, people!)