Pinterest Social Notifications

Overview

Social notifications had been collecting dust for years. As a result, they were outdated, pretty generic, and struggled to resonate with users. In January 2026, the team created a plan: 1) update notifications with more descriptive and engaging copy; and 2) test notifications across three groups: sending messages, sharing content, and posting comments or reactions.

Our goal

Create notifications that are more clear, more engaging, and more relevant for users. Aim to increase engagement, and overall MAU and WAU metrics.

My role

After analyzing our set of ~20 notification types, I found inconsistencies in formatting, punctuation, and emoji usage across existing social notification copy. Drawing on UXR insights and guidelines I’d developed with the Notifications team (later incorporated into a notifications playbook by my design partner), I outlined a new framework with clearer formatting standards and revised notification copy.

Impact

Over the course of 5 months, the framework drove increases in notification engagement, including a +1.68% increase in push notifications opened and a +1.5% increase in comment mentions. As of May 2026, this work contributed to +96K global WAU and +23K global MAU. The team continues to iterate on the framework for future social notification experiments.