While no one needs an introduction to Facebook, I experienced the company during a pivotal moment that few witnessed firsthand.
When I joined as a Product Designer in 2012, Facebook had just gone public and the stakes couldn't have been higher. The energy to innovate and scale was electric.
Despite being on the cusp of serving over 1 billion monthly active users, Facebook's design team was still under 40 people, small enough to fit in a single conference room.
At this scale I could not only make a significant impact on products used by millions, but also received mentorship from some of the industry's most influential designers.
Photos Team
Simple Picker
During a period within the company in which efforts were refocused on product quality and away from metric optimizations. We saw that Facebook's photo selection frustrated users with algorithmic ordering and complex editing tools.
Our research revealed that folks wanted to share candid moments in a chosen order, quickly. Not with neatly composed filters and heavy editing. That was what Instagram was for.
Based on these insights, I designed Simple Picker.
Simple Picker let users select multiple photos quickly, in their preferred order, with minimal distractions. It worked seamlessly, adapting to each platform's conventions while maintaining a consistent experience. One could still access simplified tools, but through an non-intrusive long-press (now an industry standard).
After its launch Simple Picker delivered strong results with photo posts increasing by 2%. Additionally average photos per post doubled, while revenue-impacting engagement lifted a meaningful amount.
Composer
Building on a weekend prototype from our Design Manager, I created a design that integrated Simple Picker into the composer, so users could select and share photos without ever leaving their posting flow. Turning a multi-step process into an even simpler experience.
Users also could now see their photos clearly with larger previews that preserved the original aspect ratios, making photo selection feel more engaging and eliminating the guesswork of tiny thumbnails.
Shared Albums
Born from several hackathon efforts, Shared Albums became a major focus for the Photos team. Facebook had lost significant ground in photo sharing, with many users not seeing it as a place to preserve memories.
I designed the collaborative album experience for Android, enabling families and friends to build shared memories from weddings, vacations, and gatherings.
Everyone could contribute photos from their own devices, creating rich, complete albums that no single person could capture alone.
The feature drove millions of users to create shared memories from weddings, vacations, and family gatherings, helping Facebook compete with Google and Dropbox in photo sharing.
Feed Tagging
We tested several custom interfaces to help users identify untagged faces in their photos, but found the simplest approach worked best: leveraging existing behaviors rather than creating new ones.
Since people naturally revisited their posts after sharing, I designed a gentle prompt that helped them identify untagged friends with a single tap. This eliminated the hassle of manually searching through photos later, increasing tags by 10% while making the tagging process feel effortless.
Messenger Team
Voice Calling
Following Messenger's separation from the main Facebook app in 2012, we believed voice calling was essential to help users stay connected.
It also helped us compete with Skype (who held 30% market share) while expanding into emerging markets where voice calls were more common than text messaging.
We designed and shipped the first version for iOS in just four weeks. Users could now make crystal-clear voice calls with confidence, seeing real-time quality indicators and using intuitive controls. Multi-tasking support meant people could browse other conversations or apps without dropping calls, making voice communication feel natural within Messenger.
Voice calling eventually grew to 300 million users, becoming one of Messenger's most popular features and helping Facebook compete with established voice platforms.