Teams will conduct research on an idea for a new social computing experience. The experience should connect people through technology in way that either addresses a problem or explores a new opportunity. Projects may seek to augment, improve or challenge an existing social interaction, or may offer entirely new forms of social engagement through technology. Remember, your team's concept must be designed for multiple users to interact, communicate, coordinate, or collaborate. This team assignment picks up where the previous assignment left off. If your team is struggling to choose a topic or idea, make sure to communicate with the teaching team, starting with your IA Coach (see course dashboard). Assuming your team has a good starting idea based on P1, the goal of this assignment is to conduct research to understand the social setting, the competitive space, and the technology considerations.
Teams are encouraged to refine or pivot their project ideas based on feedback from P1. Teams need to conduct research on three different aspects of their idea (social setting, competitors, and technologies) and then create a Research slide deck (by updating the P1 "Pitch" slide deck):
Research the social setting. Synthesize your insights for the slide deck.
Research the competitive space and literature. Report on related competitors and theories.
Research the tech. Describe the technologies to leverage for a prototype.
Create a Research slide deck (by updating your "pitch" deck). Post a PDF on Canvas (team leader only) and post a link on the course dashboard. [due by 11:59pm on Nov 8, end of Week 6]
Fill out Team Peer Evaluation. Provide an assessment of your team. [due by 11:59pm on Nov 8]
The goal of research is to gain insight on your team's topic and concept for a new social computing experience. That means understanding the current social context, adapting to the competitive landscape, and scoping out technology constraints. Teams should consider developing a collaboration plan where the team works in a co-located setting (e.g., same place, same time) at times that require frequent communication (e.g., while deciding what ideas to pursue; while analyzing data and preparing the slides). At other times, adopt a divide-and-conquer strategy; assign different team members to lead each research endeavors below. Make sure to collaborate on deciding how to divide the work and on interpreting the findings for the presentation; do key aspects together to build team chemistry.
Create a shared document in your team folder to pool together notes and information related to the social setting. As a team, communicate about the social setting(s) where you imagine introducing a new social technology. WHO do you imagine will use the technology? WHAT are the scenarios of use? WHY does social setting exist? WHERE and WHEN would activities take place (online or at a specific place; in real time or asynchronously)? HOW do people currently interact and HOW do you want them to interact? Use this discussion to guide choices about how to conduct research on the social setting.
Start by conducting basic online research about the intended community of use. What can you learn by reading online forums, community discussions, social media posts, etc. that can be found on the Internet? Keep track of specific forums, mailing lists, and people to advertise for interviews or survey responses. As a team, decide who to target and whether to conduct a survey or interviews.
Choose ONE of the two methods below:
Stakeholder interviews (online or in person): Conduct interviews with at least three people who are current members of an existing target community (online or co-located) OR who currently use a social computing technology related to your topic. To prepare for the interviews, teams should write a semi-structured interview guide with 7-10 open-ended questions, and be prepared to followup with additional questions as they arise during the interview. Interviews can be conducted in person, on the phone, or through video chat. Teams should audio record the interviews, but must obtain the person's permission first. Interview participants can be recruited through social media and other online communities, but please do not interview friends or other students in this class. If a teammate already belongs to a particular community of interest, they can recruit people that way, but have a different teammate do the interview so that the team gains a fresh perspective.
Online survey: Prepare and deploy a survey using a standard survey creation tool like Google Forms or Survey Monkey. Be intentional about who and how you recruit participants to fill out the survey, especially if you are targeting a particular user or demographic or online community. You can send targeted messages to existing communities, ask your social network on Facebook, or even pay workers on a crowdsourcing site like Mechanical Turk. Keep the survey relatively short so that people can fill it out in 10-15 minutes. Aim to recruit at least 20 authentic respondents so that you gain a range of perspectives. Again, just like the interviews, strive to recruit people that align with your topic and target audience. You will be assessed, in part, based on the authenticity and appropriateness of your survey respondents.
For the Research slide deck, make sure to summarize the methodological details of your approach (i.e., how you recruited, how many people participated, who participated, what kinds of questions were asked, etc.), and also provide evidence of key findings including quotes, figures, and images, etc. as necessary to concretely illustrate what you learned about the social setting. Include all discussion notes, survey instruments, interview questions, transcripts, raw data, analyses, and other data documents in your team's Google folder.
Create a shared document in your team folder to pool together notes and information related to competitors for your idea. Search broadly and extensively within your chosen topic so that you become a relative expert in that area. Capture specific problems, personal anecdotes, statistics, competing solutions, etc. For each piece of information, be sure to include a URL to informally cite the source. If your team finds that your idea already exists out there as another product, consider pivoting or significantly improving the experience in some way.
Beyond conducting this basic background research on the Internet, each team should conduct a literature review that digs into the academic research. Much can be learned by doing an extensive online search on academic papers (see Google Scholar and the ACM Digital Library), especially within the proceedings of CHI, CSCW, UIST, TEI, etc. Brainstorm a list of keywords related to your topic and envisioned experience and start searching. The goal here is to go broad. Just skim papers (read only the title, authors, year, abstract, headers, figures, tables, captions, and conclusion) but catalog everything you can find about your social computing idea. As you read, pick up on additional keywords that can inform your queries and exhaust all search trails. Take extensive notes and cite your sources (DOI links usually suffice).
For the Research slide deck, illustrate what products or services already exist related to your idea. Make sure to say how your idea will improve upon or how it differentiates from existing solutions. Also summarize key lessons from the academic literature. Include photos of prior systems when possible. Include citations so others can track down your sources. Include all discussion notes, keywords, analyses and other data documents in your team's Google folder.
Create a shared document in your team folder to pool together notes and information related to technology constraints and prototyping plans. The overall goal of the projects is to create a social prototype that will support interaction between at least 3 concurrent users. The prototype should NOT just be a Figma clickable demo. Only individuals can navigate that kind of prototype. It should be a demo that simulates the full social experience, including the interactions with other people. That means your peers in class should be able to exchange information through the prototype (this cannot currently be done with static Figma prototypes, however you might be able to "piggyback" on the collaborative features in Figma's "edit mode" including creating custom widgets to simulate social interactions). Think about (and write down) the features your prototype will need to simulate the envisioned social experience. Then conduct research on how the team can pull together a "playable" prototype using one or multiple existing technologies or platforms.
There are no specific technology requirements beyond the assignment constraints (simulate a novel social interaction for at least 3 users). Your projects can be built from scratch, implemented in a Web framework (like Glitch or Meteor) or as a mash-up of existing technologies (such as Google Docs/Sheets/Forms). Teams can also employ the "Wizard of Oz" prototyping method where you simulate some intelligence or some feature using a hidden wizard (i.e., someone from your team). Be strategic about how to prototype your idea given the talents on your team. HINT: To get a jump on P3, start building a "skeleton" of your prototype to test in W8.
For the Research slide deck, describe your team's plan for building a prototype: Are you piggybacking on top of Twitter? Creating a Google Sheets prototype with scripting? Making a mashup of existing technologies to simulate the new idea? Also how many users will be able to try your prototype and what will they do during your prototyping session? Try to create a visual representation of how technologies will be mashed together to simulate an experience. Include all discussion notes, tech information, and other data documents in your team's Google folder.
Put together all your work for this project phase into a Google slide deck. Make a copy of the P1 "pitch" deck and then update it to include your research. The Research slide deck should cover the following:
Title slide: class name, phase 1, team name, and names of each teammate [1 slide]
What is the social setting? (use images to depict the setting) [1 slide]
What is the idea for a social computing experience? (include sketches or other visuals) [1 slide]
Research on your social setting: Summarize your methodology and share key findings about the social setting. [2-3 slides]
Research on the competitive space: Illustrate what products or services already exist related to your idea. Summarize the lit review. Include photos and citations. [2-3 slides]
Research on the tech: Describe and visualize how technologies will be mashed together to simulate the experience. [2-3 slides]
What will a prototype look like? (describe the experience you want to create for classmates) [1 slide]
Team: Include a slide to describe how your team collaborated on the research, including the roles for each person. [1 slide]
Citations: Add a slide with links to websites, papers, any any other material you cite in your slides. [1+ slides]
Appendix: Add appendix slides for key process artifacts (e.g., interview questions, key quotes that did not fit in the main slide deck, etc.) [any number of slides]
Teams can highlight key process work in Appendix slides. All other process documents (eg., notes, raw data, data collection forms, analyses, etc.) should be organized and labelled properly in the team's Google folder.
Phase 2 Research slides should be posted to Canvas (PDF only) and to the course dashboard (Google slide link open for comments) by 11:59pm on Friday Nov 8. Make sure to also fill in the Team Peer Evaluation by the same deadline. Filling out the team peer eval counts towards your overall participation grade.
Phase 2 is worth 20% of your overall project grade. The team peer assessment can affect individual grades +/- 5%.
Research on the social setting (25%)
Did the team document their prior knowledge and assumptions about the social setting?
Did the interviews (at least 4) or the survey responses (at least 20) lead to a deeper understanding of the social setting?
Did the team demonstrate a rigorous approach (i.e., via documents that show questions, recruitments, analyses, etc.)?
Research on the competitive landscape (25%)
Did the team conduct an expansive search to discover potential competitors or nearby concepts?
Did the team give a tour of prior systems and relevant theories from the academic literature?
Did the team describe how their idea is novel compared to prior systems or experiences?
Research on the tech (25%)
Did the team outline the core features they will need to simulate the envisioned social computing experience?
Does the prototyping plan include specifics on the technologies or techniques that will be used?
Did the team create an effective visual representation (mockup or system diagram) to explain the vision?
Research Slide decks: final slides/presentation that covers research and ideas (25%)
Do the slides cover all the aspects in the description above?
Does the team build a strong argument why people might adopt their idea?
Do the slides clearly represent the research and ideas? Do they exhibit effective visual design?
Did the team conduct a rigorous research (documented in their Google Drive folder) and did they include citations?