Podcast: Margaret Gould Stewart on designing at scale

Summary

Margaret Gould Stewart, Facebook’s Director of Product Design, discusses the challenge of designing products for over a billion users, citing Google Search, YouTube, and Facebook as examples of universal human needs. She emphasizes balancing audacity with humility, taking oneself out of the design process to focus on user needs. User research remains critical, using both quantitative data and ethnographic studies across different cultures and regions, with products tested extensively before release. For business products, usability must come before beauty, but delight on top of a usable foundation is powerful, as seen in consumer expectations. Stewart also highlights the importance of diverse teams and inclusive hiring programs like Facebook University to better represent the global user base.

Takeaways

1. 1

   Designing for billions requires balancing audacity (bold ideas) with humility (putting user needs first) to avoid losing sight of impact.

2. 2

   User research at scale combines quantitative data analysis with qualitative ethnographic studies in different countries to understand cultural differences.

3. 3

   In business products, usability is a prerequisite; beauty and delight are added on top of a usable foundation, not traded off.

FAQ