Prototype v2 Reflections
This week, we built our “Looks Like Feels Like” prototype and presented it to the class, along with one of our former professors, Gary Chou.
Gary suggested scaling my product for other social platforms, which might make the case for it more compelling. Eric suggested this previously, so it’s been in the back of my mind. I’ve stayed with FB up to this point as a way to develop it and stay focused, but I do like the idea of going beyond FB. Gary also wanted to know who was determining the content of the annotations, and that perhaps they could some how be crowdsourced. I came across a product recently that does this — TOS;DR reviews the data and privacy policies in website Terms of Service agreements and distributes that information with a browser extension. They also invite community members to analyze and revise the information they distribute. Gary also said I needed to be more specific about who would use this, and what it would be like for someone to use it regularly, i.e. what are the specific outcomes, and how does it change their experience of the platform, etc.
Eric also wanted to know more about who would use this, and pointed out that it seemed like the goal would be to change the behavior of a specific user — trolls and other bad actors — but that they would probably not be receptive to it all. This is a fair point — Eric or someone else almost always brings it up every time I present and I do think about it a lot. It’s not that I’m ignoring it, but it’s a question I haven’t figured out how to answer.
Gary suggested something that could serve as a solution — I could make the product even more radical, as far as the content of the annotations. He said it could even just be a “service by which we hold a mirror up to ourselves” and leave it at that; I just have to frame it that way when I talk about it. This does align with what one of the users I tested with last week said: she would use this as way to identify herself as someone who believes in making the internet safer. It would make her feel like she was part of a cause. It would be less of a practical tool and more of an activist tool.
