The product

Nextdoor is a platform used by nearly 1 in 3 US households and spanning over 290,000 global neighborhoods. Elevate your neighborhood experience by connecting with neighbors, exploring local businesses, and participating in community groups. Neighbors can stay informed about local news, events, and timely community updates.

The problem

As a public growth company, Nextdoor needed to continuously look for ways to keep their product engaging for new and existing users.

The solution

As a product designer on the engagement team, my focus was driving growth in daily and weekly active users. I lead the Core Content Creation team where we maintained and updated the main entry point for composing content for all users called the Composer. We also regularly introduced new, delightful features that aligned with Nextdoor's brand ethos.

During my time with Nextdoor, my team saw an 8.5% cumulative increase in posts and a 3.5% cumulative increase in post authors. Below are a handful of features we introduced to reach that metric.

The Core Content Creation team released a Composer redesign aimed at improving it's usability and completion rate. The redesign showed a 1.75% increase in post authors, the largest increase in the history of Composer experiments. We also preformed an extensive audit of all existing user flows within the Composer to target areas for small incremental UX changes.

Nextdoor partnered with OpenAI. I lead the design initiative to introduce Nextdoor's Assistant, a Generative AI-powered tool designed to enhance the quality of neighbor's posts. Our testing revealed a crucial insight: the delicate equilibrium between refining one's writing and actually completing the post. Iterating on the GenAI prompt, we made several adjustments to strike the optimal balance, ultimately enhancing user engagement for specific use cases. Read more about the launch here.

Another initiative to enhance user engagement was introducing post insights. This feature provided neighbors and businesses with the capability to monitor views and responses to their posts and saw an increase of 3% of posts after it's initial launch. Additionally, customized recommendations were generated for each post, outlining specific steps users could have taken to optimize engagement for subsequent posts.

Nextdoor's brand mission is to cultivate a kinder world. With that in mind, we created a way to spotlight outstanding acts of kindness within the community. Users can select from different themes, search for a neighbor, and craft a heartfelt message acknowledging the virtues that make that neighbor truly exceptional. This initiative not only celebrates the spirit of kindness but also fosters a sense of community appreciation, reinforcing the ethos of Nextdoor.

Nextdoor invested in a system to recognize and reward users for their valuable contributions to the community. Initially introduced for neighbors, the Awards system gave qualifying users a distinctive embellishment showcased on their profiles and within the neighborhood feed. Awards then extended to businesses, merging with the original Neighborhood Faves campaign and making it more scalable. This evolution not only acknowledged individual contributions but also fostered a robust and inclusive community culture where both residents and local businesses played integral roles in shaping and enriching the Nextdoor experience. It increased posting on the platform by 1.8%.