Proof of Concept Reflections
On February 25, we presented our proofs of concept. I think a lot of us felt confused about what a proof of concept is, especially those who have been moving consistently down the same path with their projects, i.e. they’ve already built several prototypes of more or less the same product. I know I certainly felt confused, and to be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot that I did differently logistically between this and the various other prototype milestones we’ve presented on. I will say that this phase of my product feels much more concrete and developed than the others, and I feel like I’ve been able to talk about it with more confidence and clarity than in the past. So…I guess it worked?
I presented the most recent iteration of the extension concept. My working value proposition is as follows:
Roundup is a browser extension for Facebook that facilitates more civility and empathy in our conversations.
Roundup achieves this through three features:
The Values Wall: Roundup asks users to make a selection of personal values from a predetermined list that are most important to them — things like family, honesty, or faith. It inserts a box at the top of their profile where these values are visible to other users. They can choose up to ten at a time, and can edit them whenever they want.
The Conversation View: Rather than showing comments on a post in a vertical column of text, this view hides the text of the comments and shows only the profile picture of the author. It rearranges the user avatars into rings around the post being discussed, so it’s more like a conversation around a dinner table. When you hover over each avatar, an abbreviated profile window appears, with the users photo, values and comment. Perhaps you’ll find that you have some important things in common with that person, even if you don’t have the same political views.
The Comment Review: When the feature is used, a notification will appear asking if you are sure you want to post something. The goal is to inject a short moment of reflection, which can sometimes make you reconsider certain words, the conversation itself and who you’re talking to.
FEEDBACK
First and foremost, ROUNDUP IS THE NAME OF A TOXIC MONSANTO PESTICIDE. LESSON LEARNED. GOOGLE YOUR PRODUCT NAMES.
Aside from that, I received the most questions and feedback about the conversation view feature. People wanted to know more about how the conversation view is organized. Who appears in the view? Everyone? Selected comments? How will this work for thousands of comments?
I anticipated these questions and will certainly address them. As far as communicating about them, I think I could have been more specific about the type of conversation I was imagining this would work for. I think it would have been helpful also to tie this feature (and the others) back to a specific problem that it addresses.
One person commented that the conversation view feels too overwhelming visually. As I was presenting, it also occurred to me that the conversation view overwhelms Facebook’s design, as if you’re using a different platform all together. I would like for the conversation view to be more subtle and to work the features into the existing design more, so it’s less of a departure from what people are used to.
Another person commented that the features feel more like three separate features instead of one complete product. I think this is a fair observation. I’ve been feeling like I’m in the middle of a “kill your darlings” moment. I didn’t mention restorative justice once in my proof of concept, and intentionally so. However, the decisions behind the features are rooted in restorative justice, so I’m wondering now if it would help to bring restorative justice back into the conversation, to serve as the tie that binds it all together. On the other hand, I do think that identifying the problems I’m addressing with these features would have helped make it all feel more cohesive. So even if I came to these design decisions by considering Facebook through the lens of restorative justice, is it more or less compelling to make that known? One question I’ve been anticipating all along is, why do I need restorative justice do this?
The Values Wall feature was received much better than I anticipated! I thought for sure that one would flop, as I personally have a lot of concerns about it and felt it was too idealistic. I ran with it, out of curiosity more than anything else. It wasn’t clear to people that values would be selected from a predetermined list, not self-provided. I wanted to prevent people from creating values that would, worst case, be harmful to others (hate speech, for example), which is why I think a predetermined list would be better. But, is it even possible to create a list of values that everyone adheres to? What even is a value?
Finally, I received mixed opinions on whether I should continue to focus only on Facebook, or make this something that could scale for other platforms. Graham said it was bold, Eric said it would be better if it could scale. I think personally, I’m more efficient when I get more specific with what I’m trying to do, so for now, I think I’ll stay with Facebook.
