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Navigating Information

#my2cents
2 Months
Client
Twittter
Communication Design 
User Research
UI UX Design 
Team
3
Personal Contribution
Design
Aishwarya Rane
Ann Li
Shafiqah Zulfikar
Research
Idea Generation
Prototyping

#my2cents is a participatory design intervention that aims at tackling the increasing relative volume of opinions over facts and to direct awareness to the flooding of non credible content within the media landscape.

Background

Why tackle 'Truth Decay' ?

Increasing prevalence of unreliable information on the internet

Lack of distinction between well researched credible news and ill researched misleading news 

Increasing opportunity to spread opinions and commentary based on personal experiences

Design has the leveraging power of influencing the way that information is percieved by the audience

Opinion
Fact
Increasing relative volume of opinions
and its resulting influence 

Problem
Statement

How might we....

encourage audiences to be mindful of the type of content that they interact with on social media so that they are aware when consuming or spreading personal opinions ?

Driving factors

Problem area

-  Increasing need to adopt unsustainable strategies for readership and monetary incentives by news agencies. 

-  Emotionally charged content in terms of tone and voice, connotatively and denotatively 

-  Role of algorithms in dictating the type of content and repeatedly pushing certain viewpoints to users 

Understanding the current media landscape

Opportunity areas

Delight Factor

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Does the intervention incite a feeling of delight by hitting the sweet spot between behavioral actions, reflective thinking and visceral appearance ?

Visual Langauge

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Can we use text, layouts, imagery and colors to present certain types of information in a certain manner ?

Viewer Engagement

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Can viewer participation be leveraged to increase engagement with the intervention and thereby spread awareness about the growing concern ?

Design Considerations

Intervention features

1. Should be a part of a daily routine which means it should not be forced or something that users need to reach out for.

2. Should not force users to take a specific side, instead facilitate in mindful and critical decision making.

3. Should be a low investment design,  just a small tweak in the current system that can lead to a larger change/ impact.

4. Bonus if the intervention has an element of surprise!

Intervention Implications

+ Mindful : Interpreting the notion of what "fact" is as it can be subjective depending on the way it is presented to the audience.

+ Actionable : Participatory in nature to allow for increased relatability and increased social and emotional impact

+ Delightful : Should be a low investment design,  just a small tweak in the current system that can lead to a larger change/ impact.

Concept & Ideation

Intervention Stakeholders

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Changes to address

1. A more informed audience about the sheer increase in the volume of opinions

2. Creating a point of reflection for the audience

3. Fostering a habit of calling out opinions when sharing one in an open media space

4. Need to distinguish and visualize personal commentary from other types of content 

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Idea generation

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Intervention
Mission

Protect open spaces for discourse while minimizing misinformation and societal harm.

- Visualize and surface awareness
- Empower recognition and action
- Self initiated participation

#my2cents

#my2cents is a feature-based campaign, introduced as a new tagging trend to be implement on twitter. Tagged posts and activity are labeled and are made visually different, allowing users to clearly distinguish and visualize personal commentary.
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By leaving this categorization up to the original initiator of content, participants opt-in to self-identify their posts as “opinion”, allowing us as designers to maintain distance from the subjective grey area of classifying opinion from fact. #my2cents doesn’t necessarily promote more people to express their personal opinions; nor does it discourage public discourse and interpersonal sharing.

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  • Provides a way for audiences to see and realize how much content may be “opinion”

  • Provides a point of reflection towards what we say, how we say it, and where our publicly shared views and assumptions come from

  • Potentially fosters a habit of prefacing such information as “opinion” or personal experience.

Explainer video pitch for the general audience

Smart Defaults

Intention : Prompt users to call out their opinions as their two cents before sharing it with the world.​

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Benefit : Encourages users to not share personal opinions as "facts"

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Working : The #my2cents is added by default to a tweet that a user starts. 

Toggle based
Filter

Intention : Distinguish between tweets that are opinions of others and those that aren't.​

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Benefit : Increases self awareness and mindfulness

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Working : There are two top navigation tabs, one that has all the tweets tagged as #my2cents and the other tab are all the tweets without the hashtag

Citation
Prompts

Intention : Nudge users to add citation links for the tweets that are not their personal opinion ​

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Benefit : Increases the credibility of tweets that are "facts" and not just a personal opinion

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Working : When the user decides to remove the default #my2cents hashtag, there is a small pop up text that prompts the user to link a citation instead

Integrated
Search 

Feature : Search for tweets that are only #my2cents to see just personal thoughts of other users within specific topics â€‹

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Benefit : Allows users to be mindful of the type of information they are looking for and consuming

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Working : Use the search bar and add #my2cents, the results will be only the tweets with the #my2cents

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Out of platform activation

Serve as a valuable resource to practitioners who are delivering digital literacy training and services in their communities
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Intervention Poster Installed at a Subway Station

Why

1. Increase the reach of the design intervention to audiences who do not use the internet too much

2. Posters/ banners help in communicating the same idea from a different perspective

3. Engage audiences in a form that is away from digital gadgets

4. Can be a start point of a conversation for people who are waiting in a bus stop or sitting in a subway train

5. Intervention is likely to be noticed by a wider range of audiences which helps in spreading the message in a more affective manner

Design Considerations

1. The poster is aimed to be installed at billboards at subway stations ( place where there are people waiting or sitting idle )

2. The poster is meant to be understood by a person of any age and background ( universal aspect )

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Intervention Poster 

How does it work

Text overview of what the intervention is about to help audiences understand the context and instructions of how to read the map

Circular bar graph that depicts the various categories that people tweet on and the relative percentage of #my2cents tweets in each category

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Indication of the number of tweets using the hashtag #my2cents within that category

Intervention Website

This is the homepage of the website that talks about the design intervention and its purpose. Users can scan the QR code that is found on the  poster to get directed to this website where they can find thorough information.

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Impact of 
Intervention

1.  A more digitally literate society as we move ahead
2. More mindful social media users who are aware of the information that they spread and consume
3. Heightened visibility and consideration towards opinions of others
4. A society that is more open to change and improvements

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