This talk briefly covers usability and the user experience and then discusses posting to social media in a way that is consistent with how people use it.

1. The User Experience of Social Media
Jen Romano Bergstrom
November 2012
Guest lecture at Howard University

2. What is Usability?
“the extent to which
a product can be
used by specified
users to achieve
specified goals with
effectiveness,
efficiency, and
satisfaction in a
specified context of
use.” ISO 9241-11
2

3. Usability vs. User Experience (UX)?
Whitney’s 5 Es of Usability
3
Peter’s User Experience
Honeycomb
The 5 Es to Understanding Users (W. Quesenbery): http://www.wqusability.com/articles/getting-started.html
User Experience Design (P. Morville): http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php

4. What People do on the Web
4
Krug, S. Don’t Make Me Think

5. Mental models and repeating behaviors
x
5

6. Mental models and repeating behaviors
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7. Measuring the UX
“the extent to which a
product can be used by
specified users to
achieve specified goals
with effectiveness,
efficiency, and
satisfaction in a
specified context of
use.” ISO 9241-11
+ emotions
7
• How does it work for the
end user?
• What does the user
expect?
• How does it make the user
feel?

8. What to measure
EXPLICIT
OBSERVATIONAL
+
Post-task satisfaction
questionnaires
+
In-session difficulty ratings
+
Verbal responses
+
Moderator follow up
+
Real-time +/- dial
+
Ethnography
+
Time to complete task
+
Reaction time
+
Selection/click behavior
+
Ability to complete tasks
+
Accuracy
IMPLICIT
+
Facial expression analysis
+
Eye tracking
+
Electrodermal activity (EDA)
+
Behavioral analysis
+
Linguistic analysis of verbalizations
+
Implicit associations
+
Pupil dilation
8

9. Social Media
“Internet communications where more than one user can
publish/post information within a community of users”
• Allows for many different organization and/or user goals to exist
• Does not assume specific goals, such as building relationships or
demonstrating authenticity
• The first portion of the definition, “Internet communications where more
than one user,” focuses on the concept of interaction, which can vary in
intensity from consumer to creator to exchanger.
• The second portion, “publish/post information within a community of
users,” implies that there is a public or semi-public (depending on security
settings) aspect of social media.
9

10. UX of Social Media
“the extent to which a
product can be used by
specified users to
achieve specified goals
with effectiveness,
efficiency, and
satisfaction in a
specified context of
use.” ISO 9241-11
+ emotions
10
• What do users come to
social media for?
• How is this different from
traditional websites?
• How does it work for the
end user?
• What does the user
expect?
• How does it make the user
feel?

11. Social Media
• By 2012, Facebook had 1 billion members worldwide, and
social media sites were making a big impact socially,
politically and economically across the world.
• High levels of emotional engagement
• User behavior is different from websites
• Design constraints
Burridge, L. (forthcoming). The User Experience of Social Media. In Romano Bergstrom, J. & Schall, A. (Eds). Eye Tracking in User
Experience Design.
11

12. Social Media
• Peer to peer marketing
– Social buttons to users can share
• Saturate social media to avoid negative comments
overtaking presence
– Respond quickly
• Post emotional things
– Make people laugh, cry, etc.
• Goal is not to make sales
– Build brand awareness
– Capture attention
– Publish interesting content
12

13. Social Media Framework I
• Problems: Other frameworks were based on the intent of
the site, not on the end user’s perspective
• Methods: Focus groups, background research, survey
(1,686) to youth from prior survey
How often do you use [SM site] to _____ ? •
•
5-point Likert-type scale: None (i.e., I only •
read anonymously) to A Great Deal (i.e., I •
share most information about myself).
•
• Find out more about something or
•
someone
• Find places to eat or services to use
•
• Get better at doing something
• Have fun
•
Laugh
Post about fun things you are doing
See/hear something entertaining
Give updates about major events in
your life
Give updates throughout the day
Share ideas/information with peers to
advance a topic
Teach others about something you
have learned
Work together toward a shared goal.
Luchman, J., Romano Bergstrom, J. & Krulikowski, C. (under review). A Motives Framework of Social Media Website Use: A Survey
of Young Americans.
13

14. Social Media Framework II
The following SM sites or SM clusters were evaluated:
• Blogs
• Discussion Boards/Forums
• Facebook
• Second Life
• Flickr
• Tumblr
• Foursquare
• Twitter
• Google Places
• Wikipedia
• Google+
• Massively Multiplayer Online Role
• Instagram
Playing Games (MMORPGs; e.g.,
• LinkedIn
World of Warcraft, RuneScape,
• Myspace
etc.)
• Pinterest
• Social Rater Sites (e.g., Yelp, Rate
• Social News Sites (e.g., Reddit, Digg, etc.)
My Professors, etc.)
• Second Life
• YouTube
Luchman, J., Romano Bergstrom, J. & Krulikowski, C. (under review). A Motives Framework of Social Media Website Use: A Survey
of Young Americans.
14

15. Social Media Framework: Users’ expectations
15

16. The UX of Facebook
• How can businesses engage users on Facebook?
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17. The UX of Facebook: Coca Cola
17

18. The UX of Facebook
18

19. The UX of Facebook
19

20. The UX of Facebook
20

21. The UX of Facebook
21

22. Ads on Facebook: users’ mental model
22

23. Ads on Facebook: users’ mental model
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24. The UX of Twitter
• Analytics data
• Links in tweets get more clicks when in the middle or
beginning of tweets
• Ask people to do things
– “Please ReTweet” > “Please RT” > none
– Leave room for people to RT
• Respond to negative tweets
• Other social media now have Twitter-like functionality
http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/11885/do-tweets-with-hashtags-quotes-and-images-get-more-retweets
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25. Twitter UX: Tweet length
http://danzarrella.com/new-data-tweets-between-100-and-115-characters-are-more-likely-to-be-retweeted.html?
utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=blogemails&utm_content=10607388&_hsmi=10607388&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_fXBW8t0TlwBcrKYxFUja-DugZA1eS3BFjZr3MP86BaOYytWQO3c1VEZnEJEbrqW2e8d9ByrcAP4ds9pO-eWbNXDw4g#
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26. Better UX means…
• Higher user satisfaction
– Repeat visits
– Recommendations to others
– Increased engagement
• User-centered design
– From the end users’ perspective
26

27. Harnessing the UX of Social Media
• Cross post
– Write a blog post
– Tweet about it (and link)
– Post to Facebook (and link)
– Read the press release and post to YouTube
• Peer to peer: Users will do the same
27

28. Thank you!
Jennifer Romano Bergstrom
@romanocog
jbergstrom@forsmarshgroup.com