English Journal #3 Design of Digital Experiences
I watched a TED Talk about how people design social media platforms and online tools for a global audience, which is not an easy task. The people who are in charge of designing even the smallest details on these sites, such as the “Like” button on Facebook (which took 280 hours to design), must do so with humility and empathy. They must truly understand the people who use these online services to constantly evolve and improve them, which is a never-ending process. People care deeply about the details on these sites because they are such an important part of our lives, so when making a change, a designer must do so carefully.
It is true that we are incredibly sensitive to change. We get extremely attached to the way the internet works, and even changes for the better take some getting used to. One example in the TED talk was changing the five star rating system to a thumbs up/thumbs down system on YouTube. Even though most people rated things either very highly or very poorly, with few ratings in between, they were outraged by the change. They only slowly began to accept it when YouTube explained why they had made the change and why it made more sense.
One irritating example of change I can think of involves Instagram. Your news feed used to be in order of time, so that the most recent posts were at the top. Now Instagram uses an algorithm to show you what you would theoretically most like to see. Although this change was made to improve people’s experience on the platform and prioritize the things they would most enjoy viewing, it made a lot of people angry at first.
I asked my boyfriend what had changed on the internet that annoyed him. He remembered how Facebook Messenger used to be a separate app, and even though he likes it now, it drove him crazy when it was first integrated into the Facebook app. When I asked why it drove him crazy, he simply stated, “It was change.” It is interesting that he acknowledged that there was no reason for him to hate the change besides the fact it was a change. It just takes us a while to get used to new things on the internet because we use it so frequently and rely on its consistency to be efficient. We don’t like to relearn how to use something that is an integral part of our everyday lives.
Many changes, however, help make our technological experience more human and are accepted fairly easily. An interesting example from the TED Talk was how Facebook helped people tell their friends that they were upset by being tagged in an embarrassing or unflattering photo of themselves. Facebook provided a suggested pre-written, kindly worded message for them to send, and this encouraged 40% more people to let their friends know they did not want the picture of themselves posted and improved the experience of both parties.
Another example that comes to mind is how Facebook expanded the “Like” button to include many different reactions, such as a laughy face, a heart, or a sad face. I believe this change enhanced the human experience on Facebook because we can a show a more diverse range of emotions when reacting to a post. Rather than simply liking something, we can express how it make us feel, which helps us communicate in a deeper way.
Internet designers are constantly making changes that acknowledge how we function as humans online and help make our experiences more personal. What is up for debate, however, is whether this is a good or bad thing. Are they making these changes to improve our experiences and interactions online or to make us more addicted to our devices in order to make more money? Is it even a bad thing to be attached to the internet? Perhaps our human connections should be made in person rather than through screens, but as our online experience starts to resemble our “real lives” and take our human wants and needs into account, the importance of the internet in our everyday interactions increases more and more...
