House ideas is a social experiment that uses AI to motivate people to create virtual communities. These communities allow members to come together and cultivate friendships centered around specific topics. This feature was launched in April 2023, resulting in an 13% increase in house creation.
Led the end-to-end user experience design for ‘House Ideas.’ As the sole designer, I conducted user research with +10 participants, handled ideation, design, motion and haptic design. I worked closely with 1 project manager, 2 engineers, and design leadership.
3 weeks
But what is a house? Houses are essentially virtual communities where members can join live conversations, meet new people, and share their ideas on a particular topic. As an online community, Clubhouse relies heavily on the creation of houses to keep the platform lively and engaging. However, our data team identified a significant decrease in house creation, directly affecting our ability to attract and retain users.
While quantitive research provided us with information about what is happening, it falls short in explaining why. With no previous efforts made to understand this issue, I proposed conducting user interviews as a crucial first step to really understand what are the challenges we are trying to solve before jumping into any action. I helped conducting +10 moderate user interviews during a course of two weeks, which led to the discovery of valuable insights and several previously unknown issues.
Our users hesitate to create a house due to lack of ideas.
Our users due to uncertainty about whether others will join.
I noticed an opportunity to run an experiment with users who were eager to create a house but found themselves caught in overthinking it. They were unsure if their house ideas would be interesting or if anyone would join discussions. They wondered things like: Would people find this house interesting? Would someone join? Does anyone want to talk about cats? Or astrology for plants? These users became my main focus for this feature. I started actively exploring ways to inspire and help them create their virtual communities as well as thinking of ways to reduce their uncertainty.
Elise Langley, 32 years old
Recognizing the uniqueness of each creator, my goal was to deliver original ideas that aligned with their individual interests. To achieve this, the first step is to select their favorite topics and the goals behind creating a house. Gathering these insights enables AI to generate ideas that resonate with their specific interests.
To ensure users see ideas they connect with, I started by asking them to choose their favorite discussion topics. *A redesign of the topic selection was needed. The old design had over 2000 uncategorized topics in a long scroll, making it hard to find relevant ones.
Understanding the motivations behind creating a house was crucial for tailoring the name and description to align with the community’s end goal. Through data analysis, we identified 5 distinct types of houses, each with its own unique purpose.
To avoid empty houses, we added an option for users to invite friends they believe would be a great fit for discussing the chosen topic.
Based on the chosen topics and users' goals, we used AI to generate personalized house names and descriptions that align with their specific interests.
Data shows that 84% of people join houses primarily because of the house name, while 16% join to follow the creator. A unique house name and description are key to attracting new members.
As a first milestone, we've decided to send notifications to people who follow the same topic and the house creator. Our decision is based on data revealing that the first 5 members of a house are usually friends with each other, and approximately 78% of these initial members join via an invite from the house creator.
As people started engaging with this feature, actively exploring ideas and creating new houses, our house creation grew by 13% within two weeks. However, this growth was short-lived as the company completely shifted from a live community-building tool to an asynchronous messaging format. Nevertheless, it was an amazing feeling to provide people with a tool that boosted their motivation to connect with others.
