Linkedin Contacts

COMPANY
LinkedIn, working with acquired Connected Team

TIME 
2012

SKILLS
End to end product design, user field study, user behavioral data analysis, Information architecture, Interaction design, motion graphics, visual design, interactive prototyping, product marketing design

MEDIA COVERAGE
Linkedin Blog
LinkedIn Contacts Marketing Site
TechCrunch
Mashable
CNET
Business Insider
Wired
VentureBeat
Fast Company
The Next Web
40+ more coverages

HANDS ON
LinkedIn Contacts App (Apple App Store), LinkedIn Production

A Brief History 

LinkedIn as an internet company, we are always known as the professional social network, and constantly evangelize the idea of "Relationship Matters". But the key feature to deliver this value: LinkedIn Contacts, was so out dated with usability and performance issues. 

LinkedIn Connected HQ Acquisition

So at October 2011, Linkedin acquires Connected HQ, known as the Social CRM. It's a tool designed to bring all your contacts together, and help people like networker, outbound professionals, sales, biz devs...to build stronger relationship with their contacts. Connected HQ was built by Sachin Rekhi, an extremely talented and successful entrepreneur who built the front end, back end...the whole product with insanely rich feature set. And I was the first LinkedIn employee who joined the team to help them integrate Connected's feature into LinkedIn Contacts.

The New LinkedIn Contacts: A smarter way to stay in touch

At Apr 2013 we launch the new contacts with a fully redesign web app on LinkedIn, as well as the stand alone iphone app. Some of the most important values we delivered:

Bring all your contacts to one place
LinkedIn Contacts brings together all your address books, emails, and calendars, and keeps them up to date in one place. From these sources, we’ll automatically pull in the details of your past conversations and meetings, and bring these details directly onto your contact’s profile.

Never miss an opportunity to say hello
Get alerted on job changes and birthdays in your network, a perfect opportunity to stay in touch. Also, you can set reminders and add notes about the important people in your life.

Take it on your mobile device
Stay connected on the go. LinkedIn Contacts is available as a standalone app for iPhone, so you can stay in touch with your contacts wherever you work.

You can explore more design details in the following slides

A True Lean UX Development Strategy

The LinkedIn Contacts development was broken down to 2 steps: Reskin and Redesign. Right after the Connected acquisition at Jan 2012, Sachin and I decides there are so many new hypothesis need to be examined in the LinkedIn ecosystem and we have to move fast. So the first thing we did is reskin the original Connected HQ user interface using the LinkedIn site design language, and embed the Connected HQ into the site chrome. By doing this we are able to gather so many user feedback, identify early design and engineer challenge, and start building solid redesign principles that based on real user behavioral data. So in the course of 1.5 years, our team actually build up 2 site redesigns and 2 major iphone app releases, which is the first time in LinkedIn's history. Here are some designs from the Connected Reskin project.  

LinkedIn 2013 Q1 Earning Call