Duolingo’s next level gamification
Plus: Figma rebrands and re-releases its controversial AI feature
Hi product people 👋,
here with your DoP Briefing and a warm welcome to the 330+ new readers who joined us this past week.Coming up in today’s briefing, we take a look at some of the latest features announced by Duolingo’s product teams, how Uber manages design systems at scale and an unlikely new addition to Stability AI’s board.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Key reads and resources for product teams
New from the Department of Product Substack this week:
Knowledge Series - How to automate competitor homepage analysis
Postings for software development jobs are down more than 30% since February 2020. The WSJ even argues that the engineering jobs that have gone won’t be coming back. But one thing’s for certain: repetitive tasks that can be automated by AI probably will be automated by AI.
In this week’s Knowledge Series, we explore one repetitive activity that is an ideal candidate for AI automation: competitor homepage analysis. (Department of Product)
UX - How to write effective error messages
Communicate effectively with your error messages by using human-readable language, concisely and precisely describing the issue, offering constructive advice, and not blaming the user. (NNGroup)
Case study - How Uber’s engineering and design teams built a system to monitor design component adoption
Uber’s design and engineering teams built a system that tracks how well the company is using its shared, reusable design components.
Here’s how it works:
E2E test suites take screenshots and run in-depth analysis on component usage across the product
It visually highlights Base components in green and custom components in red on screens.
Each screen gets a Base adoption score that can be tracked over time. The goal is to get to 100% base component usage.
Automated tickets are created for design/engineering managers when violations occur.
An incredible example of proprietary tech developed to boost design component adoption - and a powerful case study of engineers and designers working together to achieve a common goal. (Uber’s engineering blog)
Design - Microsoft’s design teams explain their new Fluent illustrations
Gone is the flatter design pattern which marked the early 2010s and in is a more skeuomorphic look for Microsoft’s illustrations. The company’s design teams explain how the new design system works. (Microsoft Design Blog)
Podcast - Meta, Monzo and Deliveroo’s VP on how to build great products
New product features and innovation this week
Duolingo has taken its gamification efforts up a notch with the release of an immersive gaming experience. It’s called Adventures and is essentially a role playing game inside the Duolingo mobile app where users can apply their language learning skills to real world situations like ordering in a cafe. It’s a powerful idea and it’ll be interesting to see what impact this has on engagement and retention. Clearly, this kind of gamification is perfect for a category like language learning, but could other product categories eventually follow suit?
The feature was unveiled at the company’s annual conference, Duocon, where product teams unveil what new updates the company has in the pipeline. Other new features unveiled included:
AI-powered video call experiences which allows users to engage in realistic conversations with Lily, one of Duolingo’s characters.
New friend streaks and league features to boost engagement
Machine learning models which choose your exercises based on your language levels
Meanwhile…
Gmail has confirmed plans to roll out blue checkmarks to verify the identity of email sending and prevent phishing. The Brand Indicators for Message Identification started with logos in 2021 but the blue checkmark will give companies another way to prove their legitimacy. Definitely something to bear in mind for companies sending a lot of transactional or marketing emails.
OpenAI has started rolling out its Advanced Voice mode to more users. And the rollout includes five new voices in different styles: Arbor, Maple, Sol, Spruce and Vale. Meta is taking voice capabilities one step further though, and is reported to be adding AI versions of Judi Dench, Kirsten Bell and John Cena to its chatbot.
Figma is reintroducing its controversial AI-powered Make Designs feature with some improvements under a new name - First Draft. It uses off-the-shelf AI models like OpenAI's GPT-4 and Amazon Titan, without any additional training or fine-tuning and allows product designers to craft design components. The feature includes proprietary mobile and desktop design systems with numerous components and assembly examples - but it isn’t trained on customer content. Users input their design goals as the prompt, the AI then selects, arranges, and customizes design system components based on these inputs, creating a starting point for designs.
And in other news…
Pinterest is adding two new features to boost engagement and growth: the Remix feature allows users to create collages from existing templates and Collage Sharing makes it easier for users to share their creations on social media platforms.
Reddit is rolling out its new ML-powered translations to more than 35 new countries as AI continues to power product growth strategies. We covered this in a recent DoP Deep report on growth tactics.
Tools you can use
Airbyte is a startup that can develop custom built API integrations - just by reading documentation.
RSS app Reeder has had a complete makeover. It is expanded to include a wider range of content including videos, podcasts and social media into one feed.
Google’s NotebookLM is the talk of the town. It’s a tool that you can use as a writing and workplace assistant.
📈 Product data and trends to stay informed
Generative AI is being adopted at a much faster rate than PCs or the internet. Two years after the public release of ChatGPT, 39.4% of Americans aged 18-64 reported using generative AI, with 28% using it at work. To put that in perspective, it took three years for PCs to hit a 20% adoption rate.
To some extent, this is to be expected of course, since much of the world is already internet-connected and digitally savvy compared to the pre-internet or pre-PC generations. But still noteworthy, nonetheless. Full study on Generative AI adoption.
43% of the web is now powered by WordPress. Its closest competitor is Shopify, which powers 4.5%.
China’s Qwuen AI model has grown to over 2.2 million corporate users thanks to an underexplored strategic advantage over other models: it is available in languages like Burmese, Bengali and Urdu.
Cookbook clubs, running clubs and Japanese crochet are some of the emerging, new GenZ hobbies.
Other product news in brief
🎶 TikTok music is shutting down globally.
💰Google reportedly paid $2.7 billion to convince a former employee to rejoin the company.
🎬 James Cameron is joining the board of Stability AI.
The Weekly Briefing is a product-led perspective of what’s happening in tech - and why it matters to product teams.
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Good read and good job Figma with another nonthreatening AI feature name like copilot. Also I had to look up skeuomorphic and I still don't like the new fluid designs from MSfT