5.7. Design Analysis: Use Cases and Social Media Designs#

Throughout this book, we’ll be doing a number of design activities, considering how social media works or doesn’t for different groups of people. We’ll introduce a more formal method of doing this next chapter (Design Analysis: Facebook Names Rules), but for now we’ll do a simpler design analysis.

5.7.1. Consider Different Use Cases#

Try brainstorming a list of different things people do on social media. See how many different things you can come up with.

If you can’t think of any uses open this for some starting ideas

  • finding information

  • finding a date

  • being entertained

  • validating your views

  • finding community

  • sharing photos with friends or family

5.7.2. Pick a Use Case#

Choose one of your use cases. Describe in more detail what it means to do that activity (e.g., what the user would want to do, what information the user would need to provide, what would count as success, etc.).

5.7.3. Compare Different Platforms#

Now choose several social media platforms, with at least one where you think your use case is commonly done, and one where it is not.

Open this for a concrete example

If the use case is “finding a date”

  • one of the many dating specific social media sites would be a place where finding a date is commonly done

  • a video sharing site like YouTube or TikTok would probably be a less common place for finding a date

Now consider each social media platform, answer the following questions:

  • What are some ways someone might do your use case on the platform?

  • What (if anything) about the social media platform’s design helps someone perform the use case?

  • What (if anything) about the social media platform’s design makes it difficult for someone perform the use case?