A calmer feed, by design
A content platform's recommendation engine was optimising for time-spent — and users were starting to resent the product for it. The team wanted growth without the guilt.
- Client
- Consumer media platform
- Role
- Product Strategy Lead
- Duration
- 4 months
- Year
- 2023
What we walked
into.
Every internal metric pointed up. Every external signal — reviews, support tickets, churn — pointed down. The system was working as designed; the design was the problem.
How we got
there.
Reframed 'engagement' around session quality, not session length.
Co-designed a new ranking signal with the ML team that rewarded satisfaction over scroll depth.
Shipped a 'why am I seeing this?' surface to rebuild user trust.
Restructured the team's weekly review around qualitative themes alongside dashboards.
What shipped.
"Growth and care aren't opposites. But you have to be willing to measure something harder than minutes."