Timeline
Jan 2021 - Mar 2022
Industry
Social Good
Type
App
Role
Product Designer
Team
GoodHood initially launched as a neighborhood-based social platform. Although early adoption was promising, user retention quickly dropped after the first few days. Many users signed up but did not build lasting habits around the platform. Without a strong utility hook or tangible daily value, it was difficult to keep neighbors engaged over time.
We needed to pivot the product experience to focus on actions that had clear and immediate benefits for users, with the goal of improving retention and deepening community ties.
As the sole Product Designer on the team, I owned the entire design process from research to delivery. My responsibilities included:
Leading user research to uncover core needs and barriers
Collaborating closely with the founders, engineers, and community managers
Reframing the product strategy to align with behavioral insights
Designing and prototyping the new platform experience
Testing concepts with early users to validate direction
Creating UI systems and flows that supported the new model
Research and Insights
Through surveys, user interviews, and platform data analysis, we discovered that most neighbors wanted to help or connect but lacked clear starting points. Pure social posting was not sticky enough to drive repeat usage. Utility-driven actions, like giving away items or borrowing tools, were cited as stronger reasons to return.
Pivoting to Utility
Based on these insights, we pivoted GoodHood from a social-first feed to a utility-first platform. We introduced three core actions: Give, Help, and Lend. These categories made it easier for users to see tangible ways they could contribute to their neighborhoods and benefit from community support.
This shift created immediate value and built a more sustainable engagement loop — less content fatigue, more community impact.
Designing the New Experience
The new experience focused on making it fast and frictionless for users to post, browse, and respond to neighbor requests. We simplified the posting flow, highlighted nearby opportunities, and created clearer calls to action to drive engagement within each utility category.
Redesigned Home Feed
The feed shifted from generic social updates to action-driven posts, organized by Give, Help, and Lend. This made it easier for users to quickly find something they could engage with.
Simplified Posting Flows
We reduced the number of steps required to create a post, focusing on speed and convenience. Users could post an item to Give or request Help in just a few taps.
Gamifying Acts of Goodness
To encourage more participation in giving away free items, we introduced a light gamification system within the Give feature. Users earned badges and small rewards for listing items and completing successful giveaways. This not only increased the number of items posted but also fostered a stronger sense of contribution and pride within the community.
Visual System Refresh
I updated the visual language to feel lighter, friendlier, and more action-oriented, using community-driven illustrations and softer colors to foster a sense of belonging. I also standardized UI components across the platform, ensuring consistency in interactions, layouts, and visual cues so that users could immediately recognize and feel at home within the GoodHood environment.
The pivot to utility had a meaningful short-term impact. Post creation rates increased by 30%, and users reported higher satisfaction with the clarity of actions available to them.
However, despite these improvements, overall retention continued to fall below targets. Building lasting habits in a hyperlocal community app proved more difficult than expected, particularly without a strong incentive model or hyper-dense user adoption in specific areas.
This experience reinforced the reality that successful product pivots require more than just better UX. Deep behavioral change, market fit, and community density all play critical roles.
Immediate, tangible value is critical to forming user habits, especially in community-driven products.
Pivoting product strategy requires fast learning loops and ruthless prioritization of real user needs over founder assumptions.
Even when a pivot does not achieve all desired outcomes, the process of research, reframing, and execution builds critical product thinking and leadership skills.
In startups, not every bet will pay off, but every experiment is an opportunity to sharpen design instincts and business understanding.
GoodHood was a powerful reminder that great design alone cannot solve every product challenge. Lasting user engagement depends on finding the right behavioral and market fit.
This project shaped my approach to product design by emphasizing the importance of user-driven pivots, fast validation, and the courage to rethink assumptions when reality demands it.
I bring this mindset of adaptability, user empathy, and business awareness into every product I help shape today.