Engineers cannot simply rely on intuition. Early on in the company's history, Facebook engineers added many features on the premise that if they thought the feature would be cool or useful, so too would the users. The company is slowly moving away from this mindset, Chilana said. New features, such as a photo upload button, must be equally intuitive to a 90-year-old Mongolian grandmother as to a 14-year-old Brazilian soccer player, one engineer told Chilana.

Even with user satisfaction in mind, Facebook designers are not afraid of implementing a cutting-edge feature that fulfills the company's long-term vision of what a futuristic social-networking site should be like, even if it causes short-term dissatisfaction with users. When Facebook , for instance, some users complained that it was clunky and difficult to use.

One engineer praised the company for not being afraid of making changes even if it causes some dissatisfaction. In some cases, such as the controversial Timeline, Facebook will give users the option to update to a new feature before rolling it out across the entire site. This works to minimize the disruption caused by the new feature, as well as giving the company engineers more time to tweak the design.

Despite its size, Facebook faces the "same frustrations" that other organizations do when trying to design good interfaces for their users, Lutters said. "It's a very familiar tale, even if the stakes are much higher."

"It's a positive affirmation that they are doing the things everyone is else is doing to stay current, relevant and focused," Lutters said. "If there is a secret sauce, she wasn't able to uncover it."