Design considerations for social media platforms

The paper we have chosen, titled ” Conceptualizing perceived affordances in social media interaction design”, discusses the importance of perceived affordances and sociomateriality when designing social media site. The authors of this paper have defined social media as a “socio-technical systems, websites or applications that build on Web 2.0 technologies to provide space for social interaction, communication, collaboration, and community formation.”

Sociomateriality: refers to the inseparable nature of technology and human interaction.

Perceived affordance: perceived affordances are what determine usability. or the actions the user perceives as being possible based on how an object is presented. For e.g. if your design includes a “button” make that button look pushable (Donald Norman).

Interaction design of social media

The paper has identified 3 major components in interaction design of social media:

• Social media as an IT artifact

Two primary embedded attributes of IT artifacts in interaction design are identified: content and form. In terms of the contents of social media, they mainly consist of types and attributes. In terms of the forms of social media, it mainly consists of presentations and the behaviors. Form presentations refer to the static elements, including place location, banner size, color scheme, and media form, etc., while form behaviors refer to some dynamic elements such as movement, flashing, pop-up, etc.

• User type and role in social media

Designers should attach great importance to carefully consider the types and roles of users when designing the social media and its multi-facet perceived affordances.

• Application domains of social media

The specific domain which social media belongs to will determine the environment for interactions between social media and users, and different domains may host different rules, norms, and culture, etc. E.g. Facebook was used for creating connections with other people but now it is also functioning as an e-commerce platform.

Perceived affordance in social media

The paper also developed an integrative framework to conceptualize perceived affordance in social media. The authors identified 4 types of perceived affordance that should be considered in social media interaction design:

• Perceived physical affordances

Perceived physical affordance consists of the elements that can be sensed by users to do physical actions to access the features of a system. In interaction design of social media, vision, audition, and touch are three physical attributes to be considered. For example, speed-aid can help the amblyopic to access the functionalities of social media in spite of their visual issues.

• Perceived cognitive affordance

Perceived cognitive affordance describes the attributes in social media that can help, support or enable users’ cognitive process. For example, the information provided on social media, such as news, reminders, reinforcement, or suggestions, etc. may influence users’ cognition and thinking process.

• Perceived affective affordance

Perceived affective affordance exists to trigger or stimulate users’ emotional reactions. For example, social media allow their users to show “like” or “dislike” to the content generated by others, and choose to follow someone they like.

• Perceived control affordance

Perceived control affordance gives hints of who should initiate the action or interaction, which support users’ willingness to be in control. For example, social media should have the icons or features to let users know that they are allowed to delete something or customize some settings.

Why we chose this paper?

The paper emphasized that not only specific design elements are important for good design, but the user’s mental transformation process should be considered as well. When social media artifacts are designed, they would usually possess a certain degree of affordance (intended affordance) but this may not always be detected by users. This is an important aspect to keep in mind when designing social media sites. The framework conceptualized by the authors on perceived affordances in social media interaction design can also serve as guidelines for designers to recognize proper perceived affordance aspects when designing social media sites.

Click the link below to access the paper referenced for the post above: