Link: https://www.figma.com/proto/vsO1w2i2iNLcqY4kWNrfoq/Bugurt?scaling=contain&node-id=457%3A0
How to tame the energy of disputes? Bugurt: the design concept of the android application
Goal
To create an application in which people can entertain, assert themselves, throw out resentment and seek the truth through participation in safe disputes.
The problem that should be solved
Every day in social networks, forums, messengers, or just in line at the cash desk, people argue about something. In these disputes there is a huge amount of unbridled energy.
Sometimes, the dispute is quite specific and justified: the participants want to come to a clear decision or find the answer to the question of interest. But very often — it’s not a dispute to find solutions and answers. Their reason is something else …
Probably everyone has an acquaintance, or several, who are ready to prove their own for any reason and right to the end. They do this both with live communication, and on the Internet (social networks, forums …). This does not mean that they are bad, no. They can be good friends, family members, co-workers and all that, but the tendency to obsessively prove one’s own, to scold someone (power, society, culture, neighbor …) brings tension into communication with them, or even poisons the relationship. They are full of huge potential of this energy, which often escapes very much inappropriately. This application will become a place of dumping negative energy without harm to others and with interest to yourself.
Concept development
Why do some people argue so much? Studying this question, I found three main reasons: entertainment, social validation and victory in an artificially created conflict (when in a person’s life there is a more significant conflict for him, which he can not (do not know how, afraid …) to solve, then this conflict he subconsciously transfers to other, more secure situations and is tries to win it there).
As a result, I based the format of the competition. It satisfies all 3 described reasons: entertainment, social validation and the opportunity to feel the power of the winner. To encourage participants to think carefully about the arguments and not write nonsense, only 10 messages are given to everyone. They can be used one at a time after each replica of the opponent. In addition, such a system helps to avoid the prolongation of disputes and assigns them a specific length. Useful restrictions.
Those who don`t want to participate can simply observe and judge disputes. In order to return users to the application again and again, the dispute evaluation process lasts twenty-four hours after its end. This means that tomorrow a person will go to Bugurt to see if she has won, or to know who won in the dispute that she evaluated. Along with this, she might like a new challenge, and this will be the beginning of a new loop.
How it works (B/W prototype)
The user can post a topic for the dispute (challenge), it will appear in the challenge line and will be there until someone accepts it.
When the challenge is accepted and a dialog starts — it is displayed in the adjacent line— Contests.
To accept the challenge, the user opens it with a click on card title, reads the details and clicks Contest it.
The description of the challengeis the first message from the author. In total, each of the participants has 10 replicas for the dispute. Such a restriction is intended to encourage users to choose the arguments better and, as a result, to make the dispute more interesting for the participants themselves and for the observers (about them later).
If a person left the application or just chat, switching to another and at that time she received a message from the first one — a corresponding notification appears in the section My contests.
Also, to maintain the quality of content and ethics in communication you can complain on any message, by clicking the siren icon.
After sending the 20th replica (10 on each side, remember?) The chat closes and is estimated by the viewers for another 24 hours.
After this, participants are notified of the completion of the judging.
Then they can open this chat and see the judges’ scores.
For the victory in the dispute, 3 points are awarded, for a draw — 2, for a technical victory — 1. To stimulate the participants of the dispute not to quit the battle, if they feel the opponent’s advantage, the concept of technical defeat is applied. This is when it was time to respond, and the participant left the chat and did not answer within 12 hours.
Now about spectators and judging. If the user wants to judge a dispute that has not started yet and still exists in the challenge format, she simply presses Judge on the card of this challenge and thereby subscribes to it.
When it starts the user will be notified in the section My judging.
In the Contests section, disputes have already begun, or even ended. Therefore, you can start evaluating, or simply looking over right away, without waiting for anything, just by clicking on the Judge.
If the spectator djudges the dispute that has not yet ended and is distracted by leaving the chat, then when a new comment appears in the My judging section, a corresponding notification comes and the user can immediately evaluate it, if wanted.
In the side drawer menu, you can see the situation by rating scores, system notifications, and wins with defeats for narcissistic or analysis of disputes.
In the My victories and My losses cards, the score of the completed dispute was specially made well visible, so that it would be more convenient to select disputes based on their results.
System notifications display information about application updates, policy violations, as well as changes to paid options.
As for these options, after activation, the fee is automatically charged monthly until the user himself cancels the process. This is all explained before the activation of the option in the corresponding section.
When publishing a new challenge, we notify the user that the description of this challenge will be his first message in the chat. This should encourage the user to write a normal description, not just a couple of words, hoping only for the title.
After publishing the challenge right in the information window, we offer him alternative actions until the challenge is accepted by someone. This is necessary to show the user what to do next, and to hold him at the application after publication.
Registration is made as simple and quick as possible: via Facebook or e-mail (just username plus email, to which the registration confirmation link is sent).
And, of course, onboarding. To the user had better navigate in similar screens, slides with instructions were thrown out immediately. Only training in a real environment.
Application name
Bugurt — a massive knight competition in the old days, where warriors fought wooden spears or blunted weapons. This name came to mind at the very beginning of the concept development, when the application also meant mass battles of opponents, although this option fell off during the development. But the name Bugurt was very useful, because it reflects the morale of real battles, the attention of audience and at the same time hints at the safety of what is happening.
Logo
My friend Alexander helped with the logo. It emphasizes the knightly theme. Also the stylized letter T on the front of the helmet symbolically echoes with a two-sided war ax and the word "Triumph" — perhaps, a key word in the ideology of this application.
;)
