Research User Experience User Interface
Duration: 4 weeks
Team: Ajay Puthran, Sanoop Menon
Role: Secondary research, Primary research, Journey mapping, User personas, Ideation
Tools used: Miro, Adobe Suite, Google Scholar, Turn.io
Summary
During the demonization process, there was a great deal of panic among the public. Many people were under stress because they believed that all of their money would soon become worthless. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew very little about the virus. The propagation of false information was made possible by this. A lot of the false information was harmful to our health and lacking in science. During COVID-19, numerous fact-checking organizations were established to address the issue of the transmission of false information.
To identify the gaps and work toward filling them, I wanted to learn more about these organizations and the services they provide.
Scope
Keeping the course deadline and the limited resources we had in mind, we decided to target the age group of 16-30 digitally literate group living in urban and sub-urban areas. Midway through the project, it was decided to narrow down the scope of the project to a WhatsApp-based service.
Design Process
The double-diamond process of convergence and divergence was used for this project.
Secondary Research
Literature Review
Numerous studies and articles on fact-checking and fake news were collected and knowledge of many fake news platforms and their types were gained.
Desk Research
Info on IFCN
What IFCN does for safety
IFCN engagements and list of Indian signatories
Tips for tackling misinformation 1
Tips for tackling misinformation 2
IFCN WhatsApp partners
How WhatsApp handles misinformation
Ecosystem Mapping
In order to acquire an aerial view of the ecosystem, all relevant stakeholders, technologies, language support, etc. were mapped after conducting the desk research.
Comparative analysis
Each of the 11 organizations that were linked on WhatsApp's official page was fully examined. It aided in the understanding of the parallels and discrepancies in how these organizations operate.
Testing of existing fact-checking services
All services of the 11 organizations were tested and their flows and features were noted.
Primary Research
Expert interview
Some of the data missing from the tables were discovered after conducting a competitive analysis. Each of the organizations was interviewed over email and was asked about these characteristics as well as other things like how they operate and the obstacles they face. Three of the organizations responded. In addition, assistance was taken from a senior in college who conducted studies in a similar field and insights were obtained from their body of work.
Survey
A survey was created to know about more users’ experiences and perspectives on fact-checking services. This survey was carried out with the help of google forms.
Online survey 1
Online survey 2
Online survey 3
User Interview and probe
10 user interviews were conducted to gain more details. The survey was used as a reference for framing the interview questions.
An activity was planned to understand how users respond to a mix of fake and genuine news and how they go about determining the same.
Fact checking interview
Fact checking probe activity
Personas, Anti-personas, and journey mapping
A variety of user personas were developed that represented various user types based on the survey and interview data.
Anti-personas were also developed since fact-checkers frequently encounter resistance from various groups
User personas
Anti-personas
Additionally, journey maps were created and scenarios were assigned for each of them.
Journey mapping of personas
Journey mapping of personas
Defining
Clustering
After the primary research, all gaps and opportunities were identified and clustered together into groups.
“How Might We?” questions
With the help of the clusters, “how might we” questions (as mentioned below) were framed to tackle some of the issues faced.
How might we create more awareness about misinformation?
How might we increase accessibility to fact-checking services?
How might we improve the user experience of fact-checking service?
How might we improve the perceived qualities of the fact-checking organization?
How might we help fact-checkers to ease their task?
Ideation
Brainstorming
Evaluation
The ideas were evaluated based on 3 parameters to understand feasibility and effectiveness.
Prototyping
Iteration 1
A better and improved flow was plotted for the chat-based service. In order to build the prototype, “Turn.io” was used, which is a WhatsApp API-based dashboard that allows one to create custom chat logic and automation. The flow was re-created by coding the logic using the ruby language
Flow created for WhatsApp fact-checking service
Custom code built for fact-checking service
Testing
The link for the chatbot was shared with the users we had already interviewed and their feedback was gathered. It was mostly positive.
A few of the complaints were chatbot not triggering commands other than 'Hi'. Users also wanted more use of emojis and sub-sections within menus.
Iteration 02
The team was able to automate a few more terms and also for the Hindi language. In a similar way, other Indian languages can also be added. Subsections could not be created due to the limited features available in the free sandbox account.
Solutions
After a few minor testing sessions, the improved chat-based service was ready.
Prototyping
Next steps
Learn more about government policies
Find ways to create fake news awareness
Work on improving the prototype based on user feedback given and iterate further
Connect the prototype to a public database for future testing.
