Context

Low Discovery Engagement

Study 1: Qualitative Diagnosis

Study 2: Measuring the Impact of the Redesign

Higher Connection Acceptance Rates

Interpretation and Product Impact

Reflection

Research Summary

Kardder is a location-based social platform designed to help users discover and connect with nearby people. The platform's primary discovery experience was the Browse tab, where users could explore profiles and send connection requests.

However, telemetry revealed that many users never reached Browse at all. The challenge was not that discovery features were missing. They were disconnected from users' natural behavior.

The question was no longer how to improve discovery. It was how to help users reach it in the first place.

To understand how users engaged with discovery, I analyzed backend session logs comparing total app sessions with profile views within the Browse experience.

Only 30.3% of sessions resulted in a profile view. In nearly 70% of sessions, users never reached the part of the product where new connections could be formed.

These findings suggested that the problem was not profile quality or user interest. It was discovery itself. If users were not consistently reaching Browse, opportunities to form new connections were being lost before exploration could even begin.

To understand why this was happening, I conducted a qualitative usability study focused on how users navigated the existing home experience and whether the interface naturally guided them toward discovery.

To understand why users were not reaching the Browse experience, I conducted moderated think-aloud usability sessions with nine UCLA students. Participants were asked to use Kardder to find and connect with at least one new person while verbalizing their thoughts, decisions, and reactions in real time.

A consistent behavioral pattern quickly emerged. Most participants remained on the Home feed throughout the task and never intentionally navigated to Browse. Instead, they became absorbed in posts, comments, and passive feed exploration, treating the Home experience itself as the primary place to discover new people.

Importantly, once participants were asked to locate Browse, they found it immediately and without confusion. This suggested that the problem was behavioral guidance. The interface was not naturally directing users toward the platform's primary discovery experience.

These findings reframed the problem and directly informed the subsequent redesign of the Home experience.

The usability study suggested that users were not intentionally avoiding discovery. They were becoming absorbed in the Home feed before ever considering broader exploration. Once prompted, participants located Browse immediately, confirming that the problem was behavioral guidance rather than navigation.

To address this, I redesigned the Home experience to bring discovery directly into users' existing behavior. A new "Your Neighborhood" section was introduced near the top of the Home feed, featuring horizontally scrollable user cards and a "See All" entry point into the full Browse experience.

Rather than asking users to change how they navigated the product, the redesign brought discovery to where users were already spending their time. By embedding lightweight profile discovery within the Home feed, the experience encouraged exploration while preserving existing browsing habits.

To evaluate the impact of the redesign, I analyzed behavioral engagement metrics before and after launch using backend session telemetry. Rather than relying on raw counts, I compared normalized behavioral ratios to account for changes in overall platform traffic and user growth over time.

Statistical comparisons were performed using two-proportion Z-tests to evaluate whether observed differences reflected meaningful behavioral change.

The primary outcomes were:

1. Sessions resulting in at least one profile visit

2. Connection acceptance rate

To evaluate the impact of the redesign, I compared the proportion of sessions that resulted in at least one profile visit before and after launch using backend session telemetry.

Profile exploration increased from 30.26% to 43.56% of sessions during the first 30 days following launch. This improvement was statistically significant (z = −35.37, p < .0001), indicating that bringing discovery into the Home experience substantially increased exploratory behavior.

These findings suggested that users were willing to explore new people when discovery became part of their existing browsing behavior, rather than requiring a separate destination.

To determine whether increased exploration translated into stronger connection outcomes, I compared connection acceptance rates before and after launch using backend session telemetry.

Connection acceptance rates increased from 42.36% to 61.50% during the first 30 days following launch. This improvement was statistically significant (z = −11.79, p < .0001), indicating that bringing discovery into the Home experience not only increased exploration, but also increased the likelihood of successful connections.

Together, these findings suggested that helping users discover more people also improved the quality of the connections they ultimately chose to pursue.

By bringing discovery directly into the Home experience, users explored more profiles and formed more successful connections without adding friction or changing how people naturally used the product.

Rather than encouraging users to change their behavior, the redesign aligned discovery with existing patterns of attention. Users were already spending most of their time in the Home feed. Embedding lightweight profile discovery within that experience made exploration a natural extension of behavior rather than a separate destination.

Although this was not a randomized A/B experiment, several factors strengthened confidence in the findings. Behavioral improvements were evident during the first 30 days following launch, the qualitative usability study predicted the observed quantitative outcomes, and both profile exploration and connection acceptance rates improved following the redesign. In addition, normalized behavioral proportions were used throughout the analysis to reduce the influence of platform growth and changing traffic over time, allowing engagement rates to be compared independently of fluctuations in overall usage.

Together, the qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that integrating discovery into the Home experience was the primary driver of the observed behavioral improvements.

This project demonstrated how relatively small structural changes can produce meaningful behavioral effects when research is grounded in user behavior. Three principles proved especially important:

1. Begin with qualitative observation to understand why behavior occurs.

2. Design interventions that isolate a specific behavioral variable.

3. Evaluate outcomes using behavioral telemetry alongside quantitative analysis.

More broadly, the work reinforced a product principle that extends beyond Kardder. Improving discoverability is rarely about adding more features or navigation pathways. More often, it is about aligning visibility with existing patterns of user attention.

Rather than asking users to change their behavior, the redesign brought discovery into the behavioral flow users had already adopted. This shift increased both exploratory behavior and connection success without introducing additional friction into the experience.

Collectively, these findings increased confidence that integrating discovery into the Home experience was the primary driver of the observed behavioral improvements.

• Think-aloud usability study identifying barriers to discovery behavior

• Behavioral telemetry analysis using live platform interaction logs

• Pre/post evaluation over a 30-day observation period

• Behavioral metrics including profile exploration and connection acceptance rates

• Ratio normalization and two-proportion Z-tests to account for platform growth and evaluate behavioral change