Experiment Synthesis

Assumption 1 –

We believe that people want to easily see all their friend’s social updates across platforms in one place

• Collect a number of participants 
• Ask each participant for a list of friends they don’t see as often (ideally friends that post more or have public profiles) 
• Observe their 3 closest friends across all their social media (Instagram, Twitter, FB, TikTok, Linkedin etc), and compile all their most recent updates into one “digest” doc
• Add an action to each update i.e “congratulate them”, “leave a comment” or “text them about it” 
• Show the participant the digest, and note their reactions and feelings towards it 
• Questions 
  1. Would this be something you would want to receive on a regular basis? If so, how often?
  2. How up to date or connected did you feel regarding what’s going on in your friend’s life before we showed you this? After? 
  3. How much do the suggested actions make you feel compelled to comment on their post or reach out to the person individually? 
  4. Any other comments, reactions, feelings?

Recruited participants:

• Lily was chosen because she matched the Busy Bree persona. She loves knowing what’s going on in her friends’ lives, feels disconnected and out of the loop when she doesn’t see people as regularly, and finds it harder and harder to talk to people the longer they haven’t caught up because of the lack of details. She also often finds it hard to keep track of details, especially when everything is siloed across text, snapchat, etc. I wanted to see if she’d enjoy or find useful having something that put her friends’ social updates in one place. 
• Elizabeth was chosen because she matches the Reconnector Ray persona. She frequently browses Linkedin and likes to see people’s accomplishments. Therefore, we wanted to see if she could give us insight for our assumption.

Assumption 2 –

We believe that that an indicator for frequency of interaction with a friend will encourage more interaction

• Collect a number of participants 
• Ask each participant for a list of their 3 closest friends and ask them to rank them in order of which ones they interact with the most
• Show them multiple versions of indicators to show friendship “ranking” (based on frequency of interaction)
  1. Emojis (ex. Sad emojis for friends one hasn’t interacted with in a while)
  2. Color indicators (ex. red for strength, blue for trust and unity, gray for boring, black for sadness)
  3. Badges
  4. Growth (plants, seeds, etc.)
• Ask participants certain questions regarding the indicators
  1. How did you feel in general after seeing the indicators?
  2. Do you think the indicators are potentially manipulative on how you perceive your friendship?
  3. Do the indicators make you want to hang out with friends the participants haven’t interacted with as frequently?
  4. Does the participant have any type of indicator that they would prefer to describe their friendship interaction frequency?

Recruited participants

• Jerry was chosen because he fit the Busy Bree and Scheduler Sam personas. He was also recruited in earlier studies so he was familiar with the project context. He always schedules activities, both academic and social, because he has a lot of commitments, but he often finds himself overwhelmed with trying to keep in touch with all his friends and balance his social life. I wanted to see if having indicators would help him better keep track of who he’s hung out with recently to mitigate his busy schedules. 
• Perry was chosen because he matches the Reconnector Ray persona. This is his first semester living on a college campus, and he really wishes to reconnect with his friends. However, he often can’t remember which friends he needs to reconnect with or has already reconnected with frequently. Therefore, I wanted to see if the indicators would help him see which friends he should reconnect with.
• Ashley was chosen because she matches the Busy Bree persona. Unlike Perry, she is a very emotional person and says she is very tight with her college friends, so I wanted to see whether or not she thought the indicators were manipulative.
• David was chosen because he strongly identifies with the Busy Bree persona, and also slightly the scheduler persona.