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AMA: I'm Julie Zhuo, director of product design @ Facebook

almost 9 years ago from , Product Design Director at Facebook

My team works on designing News Feed, the content ecosystem (friend sharing, public content, groups, and tools like privacy) Facebook's core experiences and patterns across different platforms like iPhone/Android/Tablet, and Facebook Creative Labs apps like Paper, Slingshot and Rooms.

I write a lot about design, tech, and various other topics (like my dog) at https://medium.com/@joulee.

My favorite food is ramen.

Ask me anything!

Note from LayerVault: Julie will be speaking at the upcoming Gigaom Roadmap Conference. As part of a special offer, Designer News readers can get tickets to Roadmap at a discount using the following code: DESIGNVIP.

89 comments

  • Matt AchariamMatt Achariam, almost 9 years ago

    Hey Julie, great to have you with us today. Like many here on DN, I’ve been a long time fan of your writing on design. I’d like to start things off with a few questions.

    1. It seems like the turnover rate for staying at a single job within our industry is increasing. Can you describe some of the challenges you faced while being at Facebook for almost 8 years?
    2. Can you give us a few details on making the switch to a managerial role? Specifically implementing structure where there was none?
    3. With a massive service like Facebook, how do you guys strike and implement a universal design language that everyone adheres to?
    24 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      1. The tech/design industry is still changing quite a lot, and software/mobile/app design in particular is a super young field, so I would expect a lot of changes there. Some challenges I see are that a) there aren't enough designers, and specifically not enough very experienced designers given the demand that companies have for design, so there are a lot of opportunities for designers. b) we need better design tools to more effectively produce great designs.

      2. There's a lot to say about this topic, so I'll just point you to some things I've written about management: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/managing-with-martians-85aa70a0b87d and https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/a-managers-manifesto-be5f6b118084. Regarding introducing new structure, I think focusing on what benefits or problems are going to get solved as a result of whatever structural changes are being proposed, versus focusing on the structural changes themselves, is a pretty good tactic.

      3. We have a group of designers who work on defining Facebook's core design patterns. This is pretty tough to do with so many different parts of our product, and we're pretty wary of setting up anything too rigid (like a bunch of reviews) that would slow down teams, but in general the design team as a whole cares about presenting Facebook in a unified and consistent voice. We've made a lot of progress over the past two years, but there's still a lot of work to do here.

      16 points
  • Jayna WallaceJayna Wallace, almost 9 years ago

    Is there a team that is continuing to iterate on Paper, or was it just an experiment? Does Facebook consider Paper a success?

    8 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      Yes, there's still a team that's continuing to iterate on Paper. In fact, we launched a new version in the App Store last week for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

      Creative Labs apps lets us try different things that would be harder to try within the main Facebook app. We expect that it will take a good amount of time for us to build, launch something, learn from the launch, and make tweaks to the product from those learnings. That process takes more than a few months--teams working on Creative Labs apps should feel empowered to see that process through.

      Like in the real world, most new apps or start-ups don't come out of the gate blazing a trail to a hockey-stick growth curve (even the ones that do seem like overnight successes often aren't: https://twitter.com/evanspiegel/status/524214932477579264) so we don't want to pronounce "x is a success, y isn't a success" too early.

      Of course we've learned a bunch with Paper already, and it's our goal for those learnings to be applied not just to the Paper app, but to everything we build.

      8 points
  • Ben KutilBen Kutil, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie. I teach design at Maryland Institute College of Art. What is one thing you feel teachers in interactive programs could do better for your interns or junior hires?

    6 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      Focusing on how to assess impact when it comes to design decision. This is obviously hard to do in a classroom setting, but above all else, this is what I think would be most useful and translatable for design as a profession.

      6 points
  • Joseph AlbaneseJoseph Albanese, almost 9 years ago

    Do you feel design decisions should be backed by data or emotion?

    6 points
  • Tim CoulterTim Coulter, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie, thanks for the AMA. How do previous versions and designs of Facebook affect how you implement new designs and user experiences? Do you feel constrained at all given it's such a large app with a broad user base?

    6 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      Definitely! It's a super different mentality making changes for 100 million or a billion people than for a few million. The bar is much higher. Like, the change better be really really worth it--it better be undoubtedly some multiplier better than what was there before, because otherwise it's not worth the cost of making people relearn something and retrain their habits, which is super annoying, especially if you think about the fact that a large percentage of people who use Facebook may not find it as easy to adjust to changes as those of us who use hundreds of different apps per year.

      When you don't have that many users using your product, then the cost to making a small change just isn't that expensive, so you can get away with more frequent redesigns or bigger model changes to things like nav if they're somewhat better (versus being significantly better).

      8 points
  • Oz PinhasOz Pinhas, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    Hey Julie, thanks for being here and answering these questions! I genuinely enjoy your writing, and everything design-related you guys at Facebook run, so please keep up!

    I've got 2 questions:

    1. What's the design process at Facebook like? I've read your great "Build a Trustworthy Design Process" article, yet I would like you elaborate more on than. More specifically, if that's ok, how do you start, do you run some research or do you just ask your data team, how do you know it's ok to stash the mockups/prototypes and go crazy on finishing the details of that "holy grail" option? Do you guys provide feedback between all team members on every iteration?

    2. How do you tell when a design option is bad? I'm interested in what you would seek in a design for it be "the solution" or perhaps not.

    Thanks! :)

    5 points
    • Oz ChenOz Chen, almost 9 years ago

      Upvoted for the good question (#1 especially) and...we share the same name :p

      5 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      1. There's no "one process" honestly--it depends on the problem and the team. Designing for scale and growth is different than designing new features or products. But we do utilize a good amount of user/market research especially when designing "new" things, and we look for opportunities for improvements using the information we have on how people use our existing products. We definitely try and have all designs that are substantial changes go through multiple rounds of critique with designers and the product teams before launch. We also do a lot of dogfooding of our own products, and sometimes beta-test stuff with external people to get more feedback on how well something works.

      2. Some properties of a design that I wouldn't think is strong...

      a) it doesn't actually solve the problem at hand (often this is because we haven't done a good job of defining the problem we're trying to solve) b) it solves a narrow problem versus being generalizable to a broader problem (ie, introducing new settings or features versus figuring out how to make the system more robust such that we might not need those additional settings or features). c) it doesn't strike the right balance between making the 85% use case incredibly clear/easy and the 15% pro-use case more challenging. d) it introduces new design patterns or paradigms when it really doesn't need to (different for the sake of being different) d) it's confusing to understand e) it looks janky

      2 points
  • P GP G, almost 9 years ago

    Is your team located just in San Francisco or do you manage people that work remotely too? If so, how do you keep track of everything?

    Out of everyone that works in product design/management, how many have a background in agency work/advertising, and switched to more technical stuff later? What do you look for in new hires?

    Thanks!

    5 points
  • Ryan GloverRyan Glover, almost 9 years ago

    Because Facebook has to account for so many different users/demographics, what sort of questions are asked re: approach to creating and implementing a design? More specifically, how do you account for cultural differences among users?

    4 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      For everything we build, we like to ask ourselves what problem we're solving, and who we're solving it for. A lot of our products are meant to be pretty universal--ie, solving pretty broad problems of communication and audience, so at a product level we don't expect that cultural differences will change the model significantly. Sometimes, we will have teams build things for a specific audience or demographic, in which case we want to make sure we research that demographic (an example is the Facebook in Japan team who've implemented a bunch of specific things for the Japanese audience.) At a detailed level, we've started trying to look deeper into our product and look for ways where subtle things might be registering as too western-centric. One change we made not too long ago was changing the positioning of our globe icon to reflect where you live, rather than centering it on the Americas. We're also moving to more icon-centric actions for languages where the strings are too long to fit into the space. There are a bunch more examples of things we'd like to change to make the product feel like it was designed for a more universal audience, so we're putting a bigger magnifying glass to those things.

      8 points
  • Rıza Selçuk SaydamRıza Selçuk Saydam, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie,

    How can we get attention for design internship in our applications? Any tips? :) Thank you.

    3 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      Have a great portfolio (strong rationale of work helps) and send it to me! jouleethezoo at gmail. :)

      3 points
  • Laurie CaiLaurie Cai, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie! Thanks for hosting this AMA, very excited to have you here.

    1. Tips for a budding designer
    2. What the hell is material design?
    3. Current food obsession (apart from ramen)
    3 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      1. Practice. (Wow, that is a generic answer.) But really, how are you going to get better unless you keep designing stuff? One pattern I've seen recently which I'm super into is when designers try their hand at designing an app or some new version of an existing app, and then write down their rationale for their decisions in an article or blog post. It's super effective to send around as a part of your portfolio because it shows insight into your thinking, and I imagine it's pretty easy to pass around to other designers and get critique/feedback.

      2. My interpretation is that it's a set of standards and patterns that follows some of the roles of physical forms, which makes the interactions between objects easier to understand. (The Paper app was also built on this principle.)

      3. So many! Cajun food, bagel sandwiches for breakfast, pumpkin-anything this season (bread, spiced latte, etc), homemade grandma pizza pie, apple cake or pie.

      3 points
      • joe andersonjoe anderson, almost 9 years ago

        Highly recommend #1, that is how I got started and it helped a lot like having a VC discover my work and fund a startup. It's also easier when you are ready to do the job hunt, because you have a body of work already made and it forces you to really think about why you are doing something a certain way.

        2 points
  • David GlennDavid Glenn, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie, thanks for the AMA.

    I love reading your articles, and I was wondering if you could give your thoughts on design programs. I'm currently a high school student who wants to pursue interaction and product design, and I'm wondering which college design programs would be best for me.

    Thanks!

    2 points
  • Jeff SmithJeff Smith, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    Thanks for the time, Julie.

    Do you have thoughts on the intersection of design and engineering at a company like Facebook, particularly designers who code and developers who practice design?

    2 points
  • Bowen LiBowen Li, almost 9 years ago

    Do you think product and design will ever converge and where is the industry going with respect to organizational structure?

    We've seen the role "product design" crop up in the past couple years, but most companies are still very much PM, UX, Visual being split down well defined lines. Even companies that have product design, often times have PM as well.

    2 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      I think the vaguest notion is who defines the "product" where product is defined what something does and how it should work such that it will resonate with people in the market. In my experience at Facebook, this isn't a "role" per se that one person fills, but tends to be a collaboration among the team (engineers, designers, PMs, researchers, analysts, etc,) to figure out, because it's the most fundamental question to answer. I've seen product leadership come out of design, engineer, or PM--regardless of title, so I tend to think that it's more important to figure out how to get good at "product thinking" and cultivating that specific skill, and be less concerned about exact role definitions. There are, of course additional responsibilities that PMs, designers, and engineers have that are specific to that role, but figuring out the "product" to me feels like a more collaborative thing.

      7 points
  • Colm TuiteColm Tuite, almost 9 years ago

    Hey Julie - bit of a fanboy here. Really love your writing!

    Design tools have seen a significant improvement recently, interaction tools in particular. Facebook have been a key proponent in the revolution. What are you most excited about with regard to this new wave of design tools? Considering the plethora of tools currently on offer, what do you think we are still lacking most?

    2 points
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      I would love to see:

      1) interactive design tools getting easier and easier to use. Right now, the learning curve for QC or Framer is pretty high.

      2) Really robust libraries for common patterns and interactions, so if you want to use something that a ton of people have already designed or used in their own apps, it's super duper easy to do that.

      2) down the road having hi-fi prototypes translate directly into usable code. :D

      3 points
  • Jay AlexJay Alex, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie, thanks for the AMA. My questions: 1) To your knowledge, how is Facebook Design Team different from Google / Apple / Microsoft / Any company with a similar scale? 2) How does one grow as a junior designer?

    1 point
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      Having not worked at any of those places except Microsoft very briefly, I don't think I can be an authoritative source on what is similar versus different across companies. But based on what I've heard second-hand from other folks who have worked at those companies, I think some unique characteristics of Facebook's design team are:

      1) our product design team is made of up generalists. We don't differentiate roles into visual/graphic, UX/wireframe, or information architects, although of course there are designers on the team who are exceptionally strong/leaders in each of those disciplines. But for the most part we believe in doing end-to-end design work across a product or feature. 2) as a company, design is greatly valued and considered a pillar of product development next to engineering and PM. There isn't a lot of "needing to prove the value of design". Designers are expected to be involved in the conception of a product from the very beginning stages. 3) we're still a pretty small, scrappy, and tight-knit design team compared to the other companies you've listed. For instance, we still have a weekly product design meeting to share work across different teams and projects. 4) we care a lot about design tools. That's why we spend a lot of time teaching/making patches for QuartzComposer and Origami.

      0 points
  • Joseph LeeJoseph Lee, almost 9 years ago

    What are your top 5 ramen places in the bay?

    1 point
  • John Doe, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    Hey Julie, huge fan of your articles on Medium!

    When it comes to making internal design decisions and gathering feedback, how do you strike the balance between using raw data compared to a designer's intuition?

    1 point
  • Matt HealyMatt Healy, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie,

    Do designers at Facebook work cross-platform (iOS/Android/Web/etc)? What do you think are the advantages are of having a designer focus on a single platform vs. focusing on how a feature works across all platforms?

    1 point
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      I'd say that most designers at Facebook end up working cross platform (this is because designers generally own things at a product or feature level, and most products/features eventually end up being built across multiple platform), but we also have some folks who work on core experiences (like navigation or defining interface standards) and they tend to go much deep in one platform.

      1 point
  • Clare Ryan, almost 9 years ago

    What will you be speaking about at Gigaom Roadmap?

    1 point
  • Cole TownsendCole Townsend, almost 9 years ago

    Hi!

    Can I do a short interview with you some time? I'm writing a paper on women and their experience in the web and app design industry focusing.

    1 point
  • Joseph BarrientosJoseph Barrientos, almost 9 years ago

    Thanks for the AMA and welcome to DN this morning!

    Considering how popular facebook is Globally, how difficult is it to make design changes to the platform (big or small)?

    1 point
  • Kenny Chen, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie,

    Would you recommend product designers learn to code?

    Also, what's your favorite ramen place?

    Thanks!

    1 point
  • Tori ZTori Z, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie. I'm a design student and I'm curious about the product design internship program at Facebook. Could you talk a little bit about it? Like, how many interns you guys usually hire, what kind of background you guys prefer(technical/artistic), what kind of projects interns working on ,etc. Thanks a lot!

    1 point
  • Zach ReedZach Reed, almost 9 years ago

    Hey Julie! Thanks for answering some of our questions today. Do you guys ever plan on making a way to access a "dumb" news feed? Something more like Twitter where it's just a straight news feed in chronological order of all the posts from all of your friends? Sometimes I think the news feed is way too "smart" for its own good, and I miss so much content I actually do care about. I think it would be a great way to somehow access the true full spectrum data of your connections rather than the "pick/choose" style that it is currently.

    1 point
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      You can go to "most recent" which is essentially what you describe. Over the long run however, given that as your connections increase, and the number of things your friends share increase, we've found that there's no practical way for people to keep up with what's actually most important without doing some sort of ranking in the feed. Ranking isn't perfect, and that's a huge part of the problem of the current model, but the goal is for that to get better, and also for people to have more control over what they see and don't want to miss.

      1 point
    • Travis VocinoTravis Vocino, almost 9 years ago

      I would just add that if you organize connections and businesses you follow into lists, those lists are displayed chronologically.

      For example, I have "tech news" and "gaming news" lists that I can check to get real time information in a way that's seperated from the smart news feed.

      It's also worth noting that the more you put into your news feed the better it gets. Make sure you're helping it by teaching it what you do and don't want to see.

      1 point
      • Andrei GAndrei G, almost 9 years ago

        Interestingly, I didn't know it worked this way. Might be something to add to the "things to think about" board at Facebook. :)

        0 points
  • Paul MacgregorPaul Macgregor, almost 9 years ago

    On a scale of 1 to soul destroying, how bad is it watching what the public do to your designs?

    1 point
    • Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo, almost 9 years ago

      You mean in terms of criticism from the press? For me at this point, it's probably a 2 or 3. I mean, it's not pleasant, but you see enough cycles of news to realize that when people give praise, they tend to paint a rosier picture of how things are going than reality, and when people criticize, things aren't usually as bad as they make it out to be. So there's a ton of extremes on both ends.

      The negative perceptions do make me very aware of how much work we have to do to change that. It's a pretty big opportunity to communicate more honestly with the people who use the product, to be more aware of big changes that churn people for very little reason, and to better tell our story.

      6 points
  • William PapperWilliam Papper, almost 9 years ago

    Thanks for doing this AMA, Julie!

    As a developer who is getting started with design, what is the most important piece of advice about learning design?

    Also, where do you see design trends moving in the next five or so years?

    1 point
    • Francesco LoscavioFrancesco Loscavio, almost 9 years ago

      This is a good question. Also I'm glad to see more developers engaged and willing to participate in the design process. Design is still problem solving at it's core :) Developers have much to offer in the design process and designers too have much to offer in engineering and coding. It's a symbiotic relationship. Thanks for asking this.

      0 points
  • Ruby HatemRuby Hatem, over 8 years ago (edited over 8 years ago )
    1. Facebook had a feature in the past where users can limit comments from their friends. We were able to prevent certain people from commenting even if they are on our list. That was a great feature, why did you deactivate it?
    2. Why do we still get friends requests even when we deactivate it in the settings by allowing only friends of friends to send them?
    0 points
  • saptarshi nathsaptarshi nath, over 8 years ago

    Hi, I am just an apprentice in this creative industry and I have loads of questions but first would like to thank u and the whole design team on FB for keeping up with the pressure of taking on the visual side of the most popular site in the world(personally i dont know how u guys do that) and will just ask one question. What do u think is the turning point in a designers career that enables him/her to kick start. Is it by doing lot of side projects or gathering experience through internships or something else?

    0 points
  • Hadrien BHadrien B, almost 9 years ago

    What do you think about the work Microsoft did on the Facebook app for Windows Phone?

    0 points
  • Ed ChaoEd Chao, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    -_-

    0 points
  • Spencer HoltawaySpencer Holtaway, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie,

    It's interesting to see Messenger become its own product the way it has. I really love it and it's the only Facebook product on page 1 of my home screen (the main Facebook app is on page 3 now!).

    This is a testament to how useful I find Messenger in comparison to the news feed. In fact, I probably use it more than iMessage/SMS as it gives me a way to communicate with my family and friends who are largely outside of the USA.

    I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the possibility of Messenger living on its own on the desktop, the way it now lives on its own on mobile. Both the user experience side of it and the business pressures that might make this a difficult reality to achieve.

    Thanks!

    Spencer

    0 points
  • James Young, almost 9 years ago

    What is the design reason behind creating a newsfeed of the people I choose to follow/be friends that then aggressively hides a large portion of their updates from me?

    I've struggled with and been massively infuriated by this UX and know I'm not the only one, how is it possible such a setup tested well with users?

    0 points
  • Nathan NNathan N, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    Hi Julie, thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

    1. What does it take for a junior designer to shine at Facebook (or in general)?

    2. What traits/soft skills impress you the most?

    0 points
  • Ryan Hicks, almost 9 years ago

    What's your opinion on designers learning to code their own designs or coding in general, and how proficient if at all do you think they should be?

    0 points
  • Liam Shalon, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie!

    I'm a young designer. My question is: how do I pick interesting topics to write about?

    Thanks! Liam

    0 points
  • Keira BuiKeira Bui, almost 9 years ago

    How do you find so much time to write and even do AMA? As director of product design I assume you are a super busy person. What percentage of your life are spent designing?

    Do you prefer to hire specialist or generalist?

    0 points
  • Hoon ChoHoon Cho, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie, how much do you trust user studies vs a/b testing. Which data is good for which portion of design process?

    0 points
  • John ChouraJohn Choura, almost 9 years ago

    Where was the idea of these stand-alone apps (eg. Rooms, Paper and Slingshot) born out of?

    My take, is that Paper seems to be a product with unique lens on the Facebook experience. Slingshot's product takes full advantage of the temporal sharing world (likened to Snapchat). Rooms seems to take a different approach on being social, constraining it specifically to proximity. Overall, they seem to be very experimental, and tend to take lot of flack from the media. On the other hand, I like them and respect the experimentation.

    Are these "social" experiments of sorts? What's Facebook's 10,000ft plan/vision with these?

    0 points
  • Tim GreenTim Green, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie! I'm a great fan of your writing, theory and designs so thanks for doing this AMA.

    I was wondering, why did you make the decision to release Paper and Rooms only on iOS and not on Android? It seems an odd choice.

    Thanks!

    Tim

    0 points
  • Seah C-BSeah C-B, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie. I first started using Facebook in 2004, in my first year of college when it was available to non-Harvard students. All my friends used it a ton for about 6 years or so, but now barely any of them post anymore, and some have deactivated their accounts. I don't think that this trend is unique to my friend group.

    Are you doing anything with News Feed to address the fact that the first generation of Facebook users is leaving the product? Alternatively, do you see any of the new apps as being aimed at this demographic?

    0 points
  • anthony thomasanthony thomas, almost 9 years ago

    [Removed]

    0 points
  • Matt FeltenMatt Felten, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie. I'm going to the Roadmap Conference and can't wait to hear you speak.

    I'm curious how you, as a team of designers, get stuff shipped (assumingly) having to borrow time from engineers. Do you have engineers working on the product team as well? I guess I'm just curious about what sort of hand-offs you have to deal with, and how you solve that problem.

    0 points
  • Jeff MartinJeff Martin, almost 9 years ago

    Thanks for the AMA Julie!

    Do you think design alone can change the public's perception of Facebook and privacy (wrt Facebook but also in general)? Or does it need to be a mixture of design and, say, PR or Marketing?

    0 points
  • Jason M, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie,

    I've noticed that my news feed seems more reactive than predictive. For example, when I look for a particular product (i.e. Skis) or a brand on google, my ad's change after I've already spent time looking at related sites and products. It seems like my Facebook feed does the same thing. After I express interest in a subject (political or news in particular) then the feed adjusts to show me more.

    Does Facebook try to be predictive in providing my feed with news or content that might be interesting to me? If so, how? If not, are there plans for this in the future?

    0 points
  • FAN YANGFAN YANG, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie Nice to have you here !

    I would like to ask you : 1) what is your suggestion and / or views on career planning from a fresh grad's perspective

    2)What is the most important traits you are looking for when hiring people at product design team

    Thank you very much !

    0 points
  • Stephan AngoStephan Ango, almost 9 years ago

    In an age of such rapid innovation in UI do you think web/app design can aim to be timeless? Will anyone be remembered as the Shakespeare of apps? If Facebook is still around in 100 years, how will your grandchildren relate to what you were making today?

    0 points
  • James ShamenskiJames Shamenski, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    STICKERS!

    It's a popular feature which is commonly shared amongst several apps like Line, Path, WeChat, etc, etc, etc.

    How does Messenger perceive stickers and look to differentiate?

    Generally speaking, how might stickers evolve over time?

    0 points
  • Vinay ChilukuriVinay Chilukuri, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie,

    With something like Facebook, which impacts a billion people, I'm assuming that you dogo through the design process from a psychological/cognitive perspective.

    Would like to know what is the process that you follow with respect to the cognitive aspects of design that you take care of at Facebook.

    0 points
  • Ashraf AliAshraf Ali, almost 9 years ago

    What's your favorite type of ramen? I think I'll go order some based on your recommendation.

    0 points
  • Bruce Vang, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie,

    I'm a big fan of your blogs. Can you tell us about how your design teams are made up of? Is there a UX team? A UI team? A prototyping team?

    0 points
  • Antonio PratasAntonio Pratas, almost 9 years ago

    Hey Julie, love your writing and work at FB, love specially the stuff you guys have been doing on the creative labs, really exciting.

    Q - Recruitment wise, what are you looking for when hiring a designer? Do you focus solely on previous experience/big name companies, the quality of the work on the portfolio, and how important is the attitude, eagerness and pure know-how and creativity shown in an interview?

    Thanks

    0 points
  • Bingran GuoBingran Guo, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    Thanks for AMA, Julie.

    I have a question specifically to Paper.

    Paper is a cool product in terms of design, but it's also seem to be too ambitious in terms of mixing everything together. Can you tell a little bit about the story behind paper and what Facebook is trying to achieve through the product?

    0 points
  • Bruno CamposBruno Campos, almost 9 years ago

    Hola Julie, Great to have you here! Will you be interested on coming to Costa Rica to give a talk at a massive design festival (fidcr.com)? If so, send me your contact info to bruno (at) pupilaestudio.com. Thanks!

    0 points
  • Kristjan Gomboc, almost 9 years ago

    Hi Julie,

    first of all thx for taking your time to do a AMA here. I can imagine it's not easy with your schedule :)

    Back to the point. My question:

    I once read that one of the toughest part of your job is to manage a group of designers (20+ if I'm not mistaken) in a way that the end-user does not notice that there are so many different people involved but that it seems as it was all designed by one. How in the world do you manage this? :) Do you have specific process? Internal guidelines?

    0 points
  • Jeff ShinJeff Shin, almost 9 years ago

    What companies / products do you look at for inspiration, whether it be on a product level or a UI/UX level?

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