Splitwise Home Screen Search: Trade-offs of a Leadership Feature Request

You are the product owner for Splitwise, the app that groups of friends, roommates and travel companions use to log shared expenses, see who owes whom, and settle up. Senior leadership wants a search feature placed on the app's home screen. Walk through the advantages and the disadvantages of making that change, for users and for the business. ```hint Start from what people would look for Before listing pros and cons, work out what a Splitwise user would actually type into a search box, how often they open the app to look something up rather than to add an expense or settle a balance, and which users have enough history for search to matter. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - What prompted the request: users struggling to find past expenses, heavy users scrolling through long friend and group lists, support tickets, or a competitor's design? - Does "on the home screen" mean a persistent search bar at the top, or a compact entry point such as a search icon that opens a full search view? - Does Splitwise already offer search somewhere in the app, and is it free or part of the paid subscription? - Is the change for the mobile apps, the web app, or both? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - The home screen's current job (balances at a glance, fast expense entry, getting to the right friend or group) and what a search entry point would displace - Advantages tied to concrete Splitwise situations, such as finding an old expense to check or edit, avoiding duplicate entries, and reaching one group among many - Disadvantages covering screen space and clutter, how rarely most users search, the engineering cost of fast search across all groups, and any conflict with paid-tier packaging - How to test the request with data before committing, and how to respond to leadership - A stated position, or the conditions under which you would back or push back on the request ### Follow-up Questions - Leadership wants it shipped this quarter. How would you design an experiment that shows whether it helped? - Which metrics would warn you that the search bar is hurting the core flow of adding expenses? - If most searches turn out to be for people and groups rather than expenses, how would your design change?