Days
For my Bachelor’s thesis I explored the ways social media design could better nurture its user’s social needs, resulting in a calendar-based social platform. Since the its completion, other social planning apps (Apple Invites and Partiful) have garnered widespread attention, validating the insights and the resulting concept.
Project credits
Despite their potential to bring people together, the use of social media platforms has been linked to negative mental health outcomes, such as feelings of loneliness and isolation or excessive social comparison. Today, these platforms are central in ongoing discussions around phone addiction and whether or not it should be defined as a clinical diagnosis.
Market activity
The discourse around the phone as a problematic object has resulted in an increased demand for solutions that address the negatives of current phone-related design.
The solutions span a spectrum of radicality. On one end of the spectrum we have solutions that for example monitor, limit or hinder
screen time. These either add frustration and self-reflection to the user experience, or gamify willpower. These are mild interventions, because they do not directly address the addictive design patterns themselves. On the other end of the spectrum we have interventions such as dumb phones, which remove the user from the digital social ecosystem entirely, along with any benefit digital social platforms actually have.
Area of opportunity
Few solutions minimize socially and mentally harmful impacts of social media platforms while amplifying the inherent value of digital social networks.
How might we?
How might we design a digital social experience that minimizes its own potential for negative impact?
The process, as always, broadly resembled this, but in reality often felt like this (P.S. I really like this rendition, though I cannot find its source). At least it involved the following:
- I conducted user research and desk research
- I synthesized findings into insights
- I generated concept based on insights
- I developed and tested prototypes
Research
User and desk research
User research I conducted surveys and interviews on the target user, which is determined by age and their negative attitudes towards smartphones and social media.
Personas
The shared attitude stems from different places—one from excessive use of technology, and one from inexperience and discomfort interacting with digital technology. In other words, while their attitudes are the same, they are divided behaviorally. This has implications for the interaction patterns used, generally calling for a more simple design solution to accommodate the technologically cautious user.
Furthermore, users generally had three broad use cases for social media use:
What’s interesting is the attitudes the users held about each use case. People generally felt good about (1) the communicatory and (2) information-seeking aspects of social media. However after using it for (3) entertainment, they described feelings of emptiness, lack of control, and shame. Furthermore, using social media for entertainment was seen as the most addictive aspect of the platforms. Users tended to vividly describe the compulsion to scroll—being “sucked” towards what one user described as a “black hole” of content.
- Communication: Chatting, sharing content in direct messages, video and voice chat
- Information: Goal-oriented content consumption, to learn something specific
- Entertainment: Consumption of content for fun.
What’s interesting is the attitudes the users held about each use case. People generally felt good about (1) the communicatory and (2) information-seeking aspects of social media. However after using it for (3) entertainment, they described feelings of emptiness, lack of control, and shame. Furthermore, using social media for entertainment was seen as the most addictive aspect of the platforms. Users tended to vividly describe the compulsion to scroll—being “sucked” towards what one user described as a “black hole” of content.
The negative feelings after using social media for entertainment is predicted by research on the topic, which identifies passive use of social a mode of interaction that holds a lot of potential to be harmful.
Key insight 1
Design for warm and active interaction
Taken together, it can seem like active social participation, while requiring more of the user, is ultimately regarded as a more social and rewarding experience than engaging in passive interaction. This outlines the core principle for the proof-of-concept: Design for warm and active interaction.
Mapping the current state of digital social planning
Early interviews and survey results also revealed social planning features (chats, events) were regarded as a positive and social aspect of using social media, in contrast to content-driven features.
Competitor analysis revealed that few similar products actually exist outside of the social planning features that are integrated into conventional social media platforms. While they are able to leverage the network effect to its fullest, there are two main problems with the current solutions:
Design for warm and active interaction
Taken together, it can seem like active social participation, while requiring more of the user, is ultimately regarded as a more social and rewarding experience than engaging in passive interaction. This outlines the core principle for the proof-of-concept: Design for warm and active interaction.
Mapping the current state of digital social planning
Early interviews and survey results also revealed social planning features (chats, events) were regarded as a positive and social aspect of using social media, in contrast to content-driven features.
Competitor analysis revealed that few similar products actually exist outside of the social planning features that are integrated into conventional social media platforms. While they are able to leverage the network effect to its fullest, there are two main problems with the current solutions:
-
Firstly,
the fact that these solutions exsist as part of a package deal with features that are not conducive to social health, makes the apps feel more like what one user described as “necessary evils”. Decoupling these features is thus inherently valuable.
- And secondly, none center planning as the core of the platform, so many opportunities are missed.
Key insight 2
Focus on coordination
User journeys maps highlighted opportunities along the typical journey of social planning. The crux of the journey seemed to be the coordinating of people and settling time and place where people were available. This became the focus of my experience—to see if this part of the journey could be accomodated for by digital means.
Key insight 3
Account for invitees who are non-users
Journey maps also revealed the need to make the solution very low-commitment. It needed to remain useful even to people who couldn’t be bothered to register or download anything, and the fact that this is likely true for the people they would want to invite to things as well. To remain competitive with the vast network effects of incumbent event-planning spaces such as Facebook, this was important. The flow for this was not prototyped.
Benchmarking
After figuring out the direction I wanted to go, comparative assessments helped me determine the elements needed to make the complete experience the conventional way, not to copy elements directly, but to identify all the typical considerations that you are designing for, for example when you are dealing with a calendar.
Focus on coordination
User journeys maps highlighted opportunities along the typical journey of social planning. The crux of the journey seemed to be the coordinating of people and settling time and place where people were available. This became the focus of my experience—to see if this part of the journey could be accomodated for by digital means.
Key insight 3
Account for invitees who are non-users
Journey maps also revealed the need to make the solution very low-commitment. It needed to remain useful even to people who couldn’t be bothered to register or download anything, and the fact that this is likely true for the people they would want to invite to things as well. To remain competitive with the vast network effects of incumbent event-planning spaces such as Facebook, this was important. The flow for this was not prototyped.
Development
Benchmarking
After figuring out the direction I wanted to go, comparative assessments helped me determine the elements needed to make the complete experience the conventional way, not to copy elements directly, but to identify all the typical considerations that you are designing for, for example when you are dealing with a calendar.
Prototyping
After this i got to work on thumbnail sketches for different screens, lo-fi prototypes, and hi-fi exploration. These are aspects that I find often influence each other greatly, so working on them in tandem is helpful to ensure cross-pollination.
Testing
For testing, I drew on the ideas of Buley and Krug, because their seminal works are easy to implement as the sole person on a project. I tested frequently and early, focusing on observation and post-test interviews. This approach should be sufficient to uncover the most critical usability issues.
After this i got to work on thumbnail sketches for different screens, lo-fi prototypes, and hi-fi exploration. These are aspects that I find often influence each other greatly, so working on them in tandem is helpful to ensure cross-pollination.
Testing
For testing, I drew on the ideas of Buley and Krug, because their seminal works are easy to implement as the sole person on a project. I tested frequently and early, focusing on observation and post-test interviews. This approach should be sufficient to uncover the most critical usability issues.
Dashboard
Barebones profile section
At the very top is a black section overlaying the iPhone notch. This is the profile section, and it is purposefully lightweight to avoid social comparison and profile focus, one of the main aspects of social media associated with negative mental health outcomes. Your profile only includes enough information to be useful navigation tool for others.
Plans
The top half of the dashboard focuses on immediately upcoming plans, with one prominent button allowing you to quickly add new plans.
Plans are separated into two broad categories. Loose Plans are indicated by dashed lines, and become Plans once a date and time is set, and people are invited.
Everything is a chat
Below is a list where chats exist. You can have chats going between individuals, in groups or as part of plans. Therefore this section has them all intermingled, with plans being indicated by rounded squares, while individuals and groups are indicated by circles.
Combining Plans and planning
Early prototypes relied on AI, having events be auto-updated based on conversation. User feedback, however, revealed the value of a "curtain navigation" relating chat-functionality with the broader context in which the chat took place. Refinements ensured this menu was intuitive and accessible.
Centering pinned messages
Casual but conscientious
Another problem with social planning is that it needs to be both casual and conscientious. It needs to strike the balance between the organic flow of conversation, and the systematic work that is outlining a plan.
Test process
Here, again, early prototypes relied on AI by having generated summaries of plan-relevant conversations readily available. But this came at the expense of user agency, something the target group valued heavily.
Final solution
This proof of concept proposes the act of pinning as a non-intrusive way to save important messages. The Pin Board is readily available in the bottom right of the chat bar.
A note about this feature
There is definitely space to explore this balance further. See for example Slack’s threaded conversations, or Apple Mail’s use of AI to summarize e-mail contents.
Another problem with social planning is that it needs to be both casual and conscientious. It needs to strike the balance between the organic flow of conversation, and the systematic work that is outlining a plan.
Test process
Here, again, early prototypes relied on AI by having generated summaries of plan-relevant conversations readily available. But this came at the expense of user agency, something the target group valued heavily.
Final solution
This proof of concept proposes the act of pinning as a non-intrusive way to save important messages. The Pin Board is readily available in the bottom right of the chat bar.
A note about this feature
There is definitely space to explore this balance further. See for example Slack’s threaded conversations, or Apple Mail’s use of AI to summarize e-mail contents.
Heatmap
calendar
The heatmap calendar allows users to share availability subtly without sharing every detail of their schedule, and without the need for attention-grabbing design. Inspired by research concluding that even low-bandwidth, ambiguous design interventions are sufficient to effectively induce an immediate sense of social connectedness.
A shoutout to the Digital Social Underground
The dangers of giving users what they want
The effects of addictive design
Project credits
PreviouslyDesign intern at Bleed
Lordproctor@gmail.com
Mobile
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Are.na