User Studies
We performed a series of contextual inquiries with users aged 21 to 75 to discover answers to the following research goals:
User Research Goals
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| Explore users' basic social networking and communication needs | Discover how a unified social network could provide benefit to users |
Participant Descriptions
In order to find participants for our study, we placed an ad on craigslist with a questionnaire about how they communicate with others and the tools they use to do so. We also gave a similar questionnaire to members of the Academy of Lifelong Learning at Carnegie Mellon to help recruit users over the age of 55. We received over 90 responses, from which we selected ten participants for our initial interviews. These users varied across their age, job, internet experience, and the communication tools they use.
User Research Findings
Our research showed that while users have different needs and expectations, most put more emphasis on maintaining relationships, which is especially true for older users. Several high-level user needs were identified based on these interviews, related to both producers and consumers of information. The following is a list of the most relevant ones.
Needs
- To access information with little effort
- The ability to communicate with all contacts, regardless of the sites or services they use
- To keep informed about someone through updates about their recent activity
- To have someone perform a task on someone else's behalf
- To feel in control of what they are doing and their information
- To not have to go through redundant steps for routine tasks
- To have easy and understandable sharing
Archetypes
From our user research we distilled seven social networking behavior patterns, which we defined as archetypes.
These archetypes are distinct from personas in that they do not represent a single person but patterns of behavior. Users can be represented by a single archetype, or a combination of multiple. Many of these archetypes represent extreme usage patterns to help ensure that Socialstream addressed the needs of a wide range of users. Although represented with gender attributions, our research shows that each archetype can describe both male and female users as well a wide age range.
The Matriarch
She is a person who acts as a central planner for the groups she belongs to. Often this is a family group though it can also be groups of friends. She takes the time and effort to coordinate with members of the group because it is important for her to be connected to the people in the group, and also for groups members to be connected to each other. She puts forth time and effort that other group members are not willing to put forth. She does not publish information very often but needs help keeping in contact and communicating with people.
The Communicator
He actively keeps up to date with existing connections through viewing and publishing information. He does not meet new people through online social networks, rather he uses online tools to strengthen his current connections. He may be a member of multiple social networking sites, but not so many that he feels overwhelmed.
The Addict
She does it all and then some. She uses online social networking to keep up with her existing contacts and also to forge new connections. She searches for new social content daily and also publishes information about her self frequently. She is a member of so many sites that it is often burdensome to find new content that her friends have posted. It is also difficult to maintain information about herself since it exists in so many different places.
The Escapist
She uses the internet to escape from the stresses of everyday life. She will communicate with her current connections, and also try to reconnect with old ones. Her biggest need is to “get out of the house”. This can be fulfilled by using the internet to mentally escape, or by planning and attending actual events outside of the home to physically escape.
The Entrepreneur
He seeks to expand his social network not only for social purposes, but for business purposes as well. He hopes that the new connections he makes online, will benefit his business ventures. He mixes in business information with personal information, in order to advertise and promote.
The Dater
He seeks to establish new contacts online, with the goal of starting a personal relationship with one of these new connections. He actively searches, publishes, and reads information in order to find a compatible connection. Some of the connections he makes online are carried over to the real world.
The Lurker
He is an active consumer of information but is extremely reluctant to publish content himself. He is very concerned about privacy, and may not view others' content if he knows that other people will be able to identify that he has viewed their content.