Creating Relationships by Asking Questions
Google+ Ask is a service built into Google+, which allows Plus members to ask questions or seek advice from other people. Questions are answered by people real-time, which is facilitated through the usage of mobile notifications. Comments or answers to questions can be voted upon by a person’s friends or discussion contributors. This design was for a masters HCI project dealing with managing the increasing “signal-to-noise” ratio with social networks today.
Getting to the Concept
To come up with our concept, our team began by narrowing down the problem space to something we all felt was missing from social networks today. One space we focused on was getting and receiving advice from people. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter provide a platform for posting content, but they don’t spontaneously connect people based on the content that people post. For example, if I tweeted ‘Where’s the best place to eat in Bloomington, IN?’ to my followers, that tweet would go to only the people who follow me. This means people who are expert food critics located in Bloomington may never see my need for help, so my question gets lost in the rest of the “noise” generated by users of the service.
Getting to the Concept
To come up with our concept, our team began by narrowing down the problem space to something we all felt was missing from social networks today. One space we focused on was getting and receiving advice from people. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter provide a platform for posting content, but they don’t spontaneously connect people based on the content that people post. For example, if I tweeted ‘Where’s the best place to eat in Bloomington, IN?’ to my followers, that tweet would go to only the people who follow me. This means people who are expert food critics located in Bloomington may never see my need for help, so my question gets lost in the rest of the “noise” generated by users of the service.
We also did research on Google Plus(+), Google’s social network that allows people to share information with groups (circles) of other users (i.e. friends, acquaintances) in real time. Since it’s launch, the service has over 10 million users sharing 1 billion+ items a day. The website is structured in a similar fashion to other popular, social networking portals like Facebook and Twitter, but conversation dynamics are far different. People can use Google to search publicly posted shares. These results can include information as small as a photo to as large as a dissertation. The variation in length contrasts with the consistently shorter post lengths found on Twitter. The length of posts on Google+ is not necessarily correlated to the number of responses or +1 votes. Additionally, the amount of +1 votes a comment or share receives does not have any effect on a stream of replies to a post. All of the comments on a post are treated equally, and users must decide how to filter out the most important details.
Usability Testing
We organized our findings into four main issues. For each of these issues, we thought of a solution that would best handle the issues encountered, and we gave a rationale to inform our decision:
We organized our findings into four main issues. For each of these issues, we thought of a solution that would best handle the issues encountered, and we gave a rationale to inform our decision:
Final Design
Our prototype builds on the Google+ mobile UI to seamlessly blend in with other features of the service. The homescreen now includes an ‘Ask’ icon along with other standard icons for seeking answers from user defined groups and experts, the latter of which are identified by Google and known as ‘Gurus’. We chose the name guru because it reflects experienced wisdom and a wealth of knowledge.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my team members who helped bring this concept to life: Meredith Elzea, Alex Clayton and Subhrajit Das. Our team was mentored by Jeff Wain. We also received remote assistance from John Wayne Hill, an interaction designer at PunchCut.
Our prototype builds on the Google+ mobile UI to seamlessly blend in with other features of the service. The homescreen now includes an ‘Ask’ icon along with other standard icons for seeking answers from user defined groups and experts, the latter of which are identified by Google and known as ‘Gurus’. We chose the name guru because it reflects experienced wisdom and a wealth of knowledge.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my team members who helped bring this concept to life: Meredith Elzea, Alex Clayton and Subhrajit Das. Our team was mentored by Jeff Wain. We also received remote assistance from John Wayne Hill, an interaction designer at PunchCut.
