Writing a proposal brief

HDC427/527 Design Research Studio: Designer Agency Social Networking Identity and Activity Sophie Everett Matt O‟Brien Brenton Gaw David Gleason 2186489 4084039 6130461 4149815 Lecturers: Tony Ward / Nikki Wragg / Keith Robertson Submission date: 25th September 2007 Abstract As social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook begin to grow they have become a ubiquitous element in the lives of much of our society, from children through to adults, specifically teenagers. Their lives, from their personality to their identity, are now being judged by the information posted on the Internet rather than physical social interaction. Young people need to transfer this energy from being misplaced on social networking sites to real life social interactions and a greater contribution to the world around them. This proposal focuses on researching the social, personal and privacy issues that are manifested through these social networking sites. We intend to establish how young people feel about their online identity, how it is perceived, and how this makes them feel. As young „social networkers‟ ourselves, we are keen to design a new way of social networking that directs the energy involved in the sites today to more productive social activity. We believe by designing a social networking site with the intention of forming stronger ties to real world experience, we will inspire young people to become more actively involved with the real world itself, from simple social interaction through to more complex ideologies, such as current affairs and world issues. We feel the key to creating this new form of social networking will be through events, activities and face-to-face social interaction. Tying this to the idea of a social networking site creates a stronger correlation between actual meeting and virtual meetings. The key is to create a healthier understands of real world interactions between young people. Research Question How do we get social networking members more involved in real world interactions and issues? Proposed project     To gain insight into how people are perceived and how people see themselves on social networking sites. To investigate how public life is shaped by social networking sites. To develop a social networking site that promotes a more active role between the members To develop a social networking site which encourages real world interactions. The proposal in detail Overall Aims and Design Objectives Our aim is to transfer the energy used in social networking sites today to real life social interactions and contributions. To achieve this goal, we want to utilise the enormous focus and energy that goes into the maintenance of social networking sites to help young people become more active physically, socially and mentally. Social networking is about creating the ideal you, designing an identity that is viewed by other people. There are none of the social mores that accompany real life interactions, and as such there is a lowered risk of a negative experience while meeting people. Over the long term, this could lead to a population of young people who are socially underdeveloped and unable to communicate in the real world. We want to develop a social networking site with a greater emphasis on real world interaction through the logging and sharing of activities, events and meetups. These would then be documented through the site, a way of highlighting and discussing experience, social interaction and emotional growth with other people. This concept could be taken further, looking at issue‟s nationally and internationally, environmentally, politically and spirituality. By exposing young people to the world around them, the site would work to create a more balanced generation of people. The ability for young people to discuss their views and opinions both online and in face to face interaction creates a social network based on reality dictating identity, as opposed to identity fabricating reality. The concept also borrows heavily from the use of badges in scouts. The idea that activities are rewarded and identified on the person responsible creates a system whereby the more a member puts into the organisation, the more the member gets out of it. This can be replicated in an online setting, as a person‟s activities, events and meetups are mirrored by the activity actually taking place. Literature Review “In recent years online social networking has moved from niche phenomenon to mass adoption” says Gross (2007). Liu and Maes (2005) estimate that “well over a million self-descriptive personal profiles are available across different web-based social networks”. Leonard (2004), in 2004, reported that worldwide “seven million people have accounts on Friendster. Two million are registered to MySpace and a whopping 16 million are supposed to have registered on Tickle for a chance to take a personality test.” Today “MySpace has reached 200 million member bases and Facebook with 34 million member bases” says Joly (2007). Gross (2007) suggests that „The relation between privacy and a person‟s social network is multifaceted. In certain occasions we want information about ourselves to be known only by a small circle of close friends, and not by strangers. In other instances, we are willing to reveal personal information to anonymous strangers, but not to those who know us better‟. Further more „there is no way to determine what metric was used or what the role or weight of the relationship is. While some people are willing to indicate anyone as Friends, and others stick to a conservative definition, most users tend to list anyone who they know and do not actively dislike. This often means that people are indicated as Friends even though the user does not particularly know or trust the person‟ says Boyd (2004). Boyd (2004) implies „Many users of social networking sites are of college age, and recent ventures have started explicitly catering to the college crowd and, in some cases, to specific colleges (e.g., the Facebook.com, but also Universitysingles.ca, quad5.com, CampusNetwork.com, iVentster.com, and others)‟. „This combination may explain the explosive growth of some of these services, according to Sege (2005), the Facebook has spread to 573 campuses and 2.4 million users. It typically attracts 80 percent of a school‟s undergraduate population as well as a smattering of graduate students, faculty members, and recent alumni.‟ The following analyzed data has been gathered from the network of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) students that are enlisted on such sites as Facebook. Figures presented by Gross (2006) show that the majority of CMU Facebook profiles fall into the 18-24 bracket (95.6%).With the overall average of 21.04 years. The majority of users are male (60.4% vs 39.2%). „In general, CMU users of the Facebook provide an astonishing amount of information: 90.8% of profiles contain an image, 87.8% of users reveal their birth date, 39.9% list a phone number (including 28.8% of profiles that contain a mobile number), and 50.8% list their current residence. Also a large percentage of users (62.9%) that list a relationship status other than single even identify their partner by name and/or link to their Facebook profile.‟ Says Gross (2006). „Just because it's possible to get access to information, is it always OK to do so?‟ asks Boyd (2007) from the University of California in Berkley. This is a question that has come up since the advent of the major Social Networking Sites. It is now very easy to look up someone on the Internet to find information on them and find out who they are but because „the Internet lacks walls, conversations can spread and contexts collapse.‟(Boyd 2007) Humor could be taken seriously or the other way around. This is where the problems with looking someone up instead of meeting them in person occur. The information found could be taken out of context and easily be used „to make pre-judgments about individuals without ever meeting them‟ states Carpenter, Lauson and Snyder (2006). It‟s reasons like these that we want to try and remedy the break down of communication by creating a site that has a more hands on approach and more „real‟ social interaction between the members. With sites like Myspace and Facebook becoming more and more popular daily the information that is uploaded onto members pages are slowly starting to be used in media communication. Newspapers and magazines **find quote** are using these sites as a place to gather quotes and information that would‟ve been private prior to the occurrence of SNS. Carpenter, Lauson and Snyder (2006) poses the question in relation to this topic of „while more information is available, is its use ethical?‟ (Boyd 2007) backs up this point by adding the point that „what it means to be public or private is quickly changing before our eyes.‟ What was once said between friends and associates in private can now be taken and displayed into a public forum. She goes onto say „while I can argue that „just because we can, doesn't mean we should‟, it is foolish to assume that society will quietly take up conscientious restraint.‟ It‟s reasons such as this that Carpenter, Lauson and Snyder (2006) talk about how users will start to restrain what they write and posts will become generic and stale due to fears of information misuse. Studies conducted in 2005 pointed out that “email may be at the beginning of a slow decline as online teens begin to express a preference for instant messaging” (Hitlin, Lenhart & Madden 2005) This trend towards a newer mediums of internet communication can also be seen to be taking place today with the emergence and proliferation of Social Networking sites. Web pages such as MySpace are becoming an essential part in the daily lives of users, “48% of teens visit social networking websites daily or more often; 26% visit once a day, 22% visit several times a day” This constant usage provides a hub of communication among users. “91% of all social networking teens say they use the sites to stay in touch with friends they see frequently, while 82% use the sites to stay in touch with friends they rarely see in person” in addition to this “72% of all social networking teens use the sites to make plans with friends; 49% use the sites to make new friends” (Lenhart & Madden 2007). “Adolescents‟ favourite web activities also differ significantly between boys and girls. Boys prefer to download games and video clips more often, whereas girls prefer to email and send digital cards on the Internet. Girls also have a clearer preference for chat and IM” (Peter, Schouten & Valkenburg 2005). “Online relationships differ fundamentally from face to face relationships, especially because of the anonymity accorded by the Internet”(Gant & Shaw 2002). This is possibly causing unreal and superficial friendships to be formed. Proving that there is still a preference for face to face communication and interaction “teens still report, on average, spending more time physically with their friends doing social things outside of school than they report interacting with friends through technology” (Hitlin). “Research on identity development has identified that youth actively explore and question various beliefs, boundaries, goals, and roles before assimilating those that provide a sense of uniqueness (distinction from others) and a sense of unity (continuity and sameness with others)” (Hinduja & Patchin 2007). This process can easily and freely occur in an online setting whether it be through social networking sites, chat rooms or IM because of the anonymity and freedom that the internet provides” (Hinduja & Patchin 2007) Peter, Schouten & Valkenburg (2005) discuss that “Many identity researchers regard the self and identity as two different, yet related constructs. They assume that while individuals have only one self, they have many different identities. These identities vary across relational contexts, such as the family, peer group and school” It has been seen that younger adolescents were more likely to participate in identity experiments online than older users, this falls into line with most theories of the creation of self identity occurring at younger ages. The most prolific reasons for identity experiments online , among all ages was “self-exploration (to investigate how others react), followed by social compensation (to overcome shyness) and social facilitation (to facilitate relationship formation)”(Peter, Schouten & Valkenburg 2005). Furthermore it has been found that “older teenagers use the internet more often to communicate with their existing personal network, whereas younger adolescents use it more frequently to communicate with strangers and play with their identities” (Peter, Schouten & Valkenburg 2005) A study completed by Shaw and Gant shows that through the use of Internet chat participants reduced depression and loneliness and increased the participant‟s self-esteem and feelings of social support. “Depression among the participants could have decreased for reasons unrelated to the study, although it seems remote that effects as strong as those produced by this study could have been the result of random occurrences” (Gant & Shaw 2002). “belonging… and appraisal increased over time, indicating that participants‟ perceptions of social support were elevated over the course of the study”. (Gant & Shaw 2002). Background We propose this website as a reaction to the isolation and unreality of social networking websites like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and Bebo. Our research so far highlighted the need for social networking that combines the use of the Internet with real world interaction to create a more realistic profile of people while still allowing them the vast array of options provided by online profiles. We saw an opportunity to create a space in which young people could combine who they are with what they do. The website will allow them to set up a profile of themselves, filled with the information they choose to provide, much like Facebook and other social networking sites use, but it will also allow this information to be supplemented, influenced and built upon by the activities that take place in the real world. This could be something as simple as a weekly book club or as complicated as a national promotion for a company. Our concern is not so much with the state of social networking, but rather our desire to build upon it to create something that better represents the community that is utilising those services. We intend to utilise a fresh and youthful design aesthetic, accessible information and an ease of use similar to the way Facebook works, with a greater emphasis on activities, events and meetups to create a more socially, emotionally, and physically developed community of young people for the future. Methodologies We plan on using a range of methodologies to back up our proposal. From the traditional line of research methods, we plan on conducting questionnaires, interviews and a literature review. From the adapted line of research methods, we plan on using participant observation. Finally, from the innovative line of research methods we plan on using design workshops, card sorting and visual response exercises. By including a number of traditional research methodologies, we allow ourselves the widest range of simplified data, without being constricted by any one pathway. Our questionnaires will ask users to respond to information about them on flash cards that has been sourced by someone they do not know. They can respond using words, images, whatever they wish to put on the cards. These responses will help us better understand how young people view the information they put online, thereby strengthening our overall understanding of social networking profiles. This will allow us a range of findings that will then help us to highlight the most appropriate campaign concepts to achieve our goals. R.Gross suggests, „In recent years online social networking has moved from niche phenomenon to mass adoption‟, and a large number of young people both utilize and are targeted by social networking sites. These people will make up our key target market and the group that we will test our methodologies against. They are well educated on what social networking is and how it relates to them, and as such they are a more likely to become engaged in the research if it allows them to express their opinions in whatever way they deem necessary. We conducted our cultural probe under the guise of the title „We Know You‟; we randomly picked three people to be research by someone that does not know them using only their name, email and the Internet. The results were then turned into flash cards that were given to the people, allowing them to respond to the „allegations‟ against them. These results have so far been highly varied, going both for and against our original hypothesis that the people who use social networking are not fully aware of the issues of privacy. The original expectation was that people would feel strongly about their privacy and how their information looks when presented in simple sentences. We had thought people would feel violated by the way in which their information was gathered, and as a result, would reconsider what of themselves they made available. In some cases, this rang true, and people were upset, going as far as to pull out of the research all together. On the other end of the spectrum, people responded with apathy about the flash cards, showing that some young people do understand the way in which their information is processed, received and perceived by the wider public. From here, our plan is to go back to our probes and interview them to see how the probes made them feel, how they look at social networking and how they feel about privacy and the Internet. These combined methodologies allow us a comprehensive overview of the young user of social networking websites in Australia. User Profile Our primary audience, young people from 16 – 25 years old, come from a large number of socio-economic backgrounds. Mostly they are made up of high school students and university students. They like watching TV, reading magazines, meeting with friends and get bored easily while studying. They use the Internet at least two hours a day for assignments, chatting and social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. They like an eclectic range of music, generally house, pop and rock. They come from a large range of financial backgrounds, are generally Australian citizens. and come from a range of ethnicities. They live at home, but some have moved out of home with friends or partners. There are no restrictions on them, as they can come from any walk of life, be a part of any social groups and be of any range of educational backgrounds. They embrace new trends very quickly, and tend to put a great deal of time into their online profiles, sharing all parts of their lives. They rely heavily on the opinions of their friends, family, media, and anyone else around them. They are under 18 and over 18, so very different experiences, interests and views make up their personalities. Our secondary audience are students and office workers 25 -35 years old. They watch the news and read the newspaper on a regular basis, it is important for them to keep up to date with world issues. They use the Internet regularly throughout the day and possibly for a couple of hours when they get home. They go to the gym at least twice a week and enjoy going out with friends over the weekend. Positioning Product Audience Our primary audience is 16 – 25 year olds male and female. Design Restraints Our target market is extremely aware of advertising and marketing, and as such is able to quickly distinguish between what is important to them and what is not important. In terms of social networking they have used a large number of services and may have a number of accounts with different services. The design must appeal to young people have a very high standard of content available to them, and allow them to simply and concisely view, search, organise and attend events, edit profiles and utilise the site. Product competition We are competing against a wide range of social networking websites and services. The largest of these are MySpace and Facebook, but there are a large number of small sites for a more niche audience, divided by race, sexuality, religion, political motivation and personality. These sites do not have a large emphasis on face-to-face contact or furthering social interaction on a personal level. The exceptions to these are dating sites, which are based on the eventuation of a relationship that usually involves meeting face-to-face. We are also competing against a company called „Getup‟, an independent, grass-roots community advocacy organisation giving everyday Australians opportunities to get involved and hold politicians accountable on important issues. GetUp is controlled from its Internet base and after only two years of establishment has 199587 members. GetUp has been involved in many campaign‟s since 2005 that tackle issue‟s such as the Cronulla riots, Global warming and deceiving „pregnancy counseling services‟. Similar groups to GetUp have been formed in other communities‟ world wide, such as Moveon and Avaaz. Moveon was formed in 1998 in the United States. It focuses on education and advocacy on important national issues and now has over 3.3 million members. Res Publica and MoveOn founded Avaaz in 2006. Avaaz takes action on the major issues facing the world today. Our vision is to create a service that combines the ease of use and popularity of social networking with the positive change created by sites like GetUp. Brand vision/personality Our brand is young, fun, enthusiastic and simple to use. Our key goal is to allow young people to mix online social networking with real world social networking. As our audience is extremely aware of social networking websites and practices, we have a no nonsense approach to the organisation, attendance and documentation of meetups. We have simple goal, and our brand reflects that. Marketing advantages/points of differentiation and distinction Our key advantage is that we want to expand the possibilities of using a social networking website into something more socially tangible. We want to create a system where, instead of having one million friends you don‟t know, you have twenty that you really do. We hope to offer a compelling, tech-savvy and socially responsible alternative to the current crop of social networking websites. Three preliminary concepts Concept #1: Standard Campaign for new company Large scale campaign consisting of posters and web page Accompanying TVC Website prototype Website branding Concept #2: Campaign as well as branding Website prototype Marketing campaign/company branding Membership package with flyers, information, t-shirt etc Concept #3: Fully digital campaign Website prototype Web banners Gorilla MySpace / Facebook page as advertisements Timeline Week 7 24.09.07 Proposal presentation Begin/Continue research Upload/Update blog Development work on visual ideas for campaign and website Week 8 01.10.07 Upload/Update blog Development of process blog Continue research Analyse proposal feed back Begin to refine/collate research Continue work on visual ideas for campaign Week 9 08.10.07 Upload/Update blog Continue research Continue work on campaign Week 10 15.10.07 Upload/Update blog Continue/revise work on campaign Development of visual ideas Test for user feed back Conduct response research if needed Week 11 22.10.07 Upload/Update blog Test for user feed back Continue visual campaign Finalise revised campaign Week 12 29.10.07 Finish campaign/website Finish process blog Prepare for presentation Week 13 05.11.07 Final Presentation Submit References/Bibliography Boyd, D 2004, “Friendster and publicly articulated social networking”, Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems, April Boyd, D 2007, “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?”, Knowledge Tree Carpenter, D. 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