Trimming the Noise: Chorus Redesigned Notifications and Cut Churn

Design · 5 min read

Chorus had one of the highest notification rates in its cohort—many users reported annoyance and disabled notifications entirely, leading to fewer returns. Product research found users valued some alerts (direct messages, mentions) but were overwhelmed by social algorithm nudges and transactional pings. The settings UI was a dense list of toggles that users didn’t understand.

Designers introduced a three-part strategy: prioritized push channels, a daily digest for low-priority items, and a smarter default that used lightweight on-device ML to suppress repetitive pings. The new settings UI framed choices around outcomes (“Get DMs instantly,” “Digest: Likes & Reposts daily”) instead of internal event names. Users could also set quiet hours and choose a single top priority for instant pushes.

A controlled experiment over eight weeks showed churn among new users fell by 18%, overall notification opt-out rates dropped, and time to first return from push improved by 12%. Engagement quality rose—users who received the digest spent more time interacting with substantive content. chorus’s lesson: better defaults and clearer settings trump more granular control for most users.