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Miguel Arias
Product + Design Strategy

Nextdoor
Neighborhood Faves

Increasing WAU by 32.5% with a redesigned survey voting experience

Total Votes 16M
Shares 700k
Winners >1M
WAU +32.5%
Strategy UX/UI Visual Design Design Systems
ROLE
Staff Product Designer

SCOPE

Flagship growth initiative across
Feed, Map, and Business Pages

TEAM

Engineering Manager
Product Manager
Product Designer
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Reframing the problem

The legacy voting flow stalled participation rates. The survey allowed users to vote for local businesses but survey only allowed one vote per category. Customers could not support multiple businesses under a category. Result was high drop-off and limited growth.
METRICS 2019 - 2020

11M → 9M

Total Votes

12.7 → 11.5

Votes per voter
UNDERSTANDING THE DROP
One vote per category
Forced linear voting flow
Post-vote prompts increased dropoff
Limited category and business discovery
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Approach

Three guiding principles aligned stakeholders and kept design reviews focused on trade-offs and solutions.

01

Diagnose vote drop
I traced the decline of the flow. One vote per category, a linear forced flow, post-vote friction, and low discoverability across Feed, Map, and Pages.

02

Set guiding principles
Three principles kept reviews focused on tradeoffs and not opinions. Optimize for votes, trust over gamification, and voter choice over completion.

03

Redesign for unlimited support
I rebuilt around voter choice and owned end-to-end flow. Direction, flows, screens, prototypes, user testing, art direction and scope alignment with product and engineering.
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Role & Scope
STRATEGY
Defined product strategy and design principles
Shared systems thinking to leadership
EXECUTION
Led end-to-end design for the voting experience
Art-directed illustration work
Owned direction, flows, and key screens
Built prototypes and ran user testing
LEADERSHIP
Mentored a product designer
Reviewed systems diagrams
Aligned scope with Engineering

Results
2020 & 2023
METRIC
BEFORE
AFTER
Total votes
9M
16M
Votes per voter
11.5
15.5
Winning businesses announced
391k
>1M
Shares
feature not available
700k
Weekly Active Users
Baseline
+32.5%

Selected Works
Raptive Design Infrastructure0→1 · Design Systems · AI Workflows · Design Engineering
Slack SynthesisAI Workflows · Systems Design · Product Strategy · Prototype · 2026
Lifting business recommendations by 14% with AI powered discoveryStrategy • UX/UI • User Research • Prototype • AI Powered
Unifying 4 Zillow products with a design system at 100% adoptionStrategy • UI/UX • Visual Design • Design Systems
Helping homebuyers plan open-home weekends around neighborhoods they care aboutUI/UX • Visual Design • User Research
Directing brand, campaign, and visual design for product launchesVisual Design • Art Direction • Branding
Driving 60% pilot adoption with a behavioral rewards systemStrategy • UI/UX • Visual Design • Design Systems
AboutAbout • Experience