Artifact Refinement

iCompuGlobalHyperMegaNetster have chosen the web application Facebook as our group's artifact to refine. Our mission is to create a Social Life Organizer, based upon the concept of the Facebook, which utilizes a web based calendar and other widgets to organize ones personal and social life. This new application will become the central hub for ones everyday life and will allow a person to easily coordinate their lives with their friends. Taking into regard the strengths and success of Facebook, we at iCompuGlobalHyperMegaNetster feel that we have the knowledge necessary to design and create a web application that will be successful and widely used.

Study Details

Demographic: College studens, late teens(18-19) to early twenties(20-23)
Observational Method: Casual, mainly the Student Union. The goal was to examine regular useage of facebook.
Duration: Approximately 1 hour


Survey Data

History

Facebook is a very popular social networking site among college and highschool students. The service centers around customizeable user profiles.

Source and more info at: Wikipedia: facebook (website)

Utility

Social networking services provide a variety of methods to connect people and events in an online environment. The most popular feature of Facebook appears to be the ability to create and update a user profile that other members of the community can view. Users can choose to display information about hometown, high school, major, relationship status, political views, interests, an about me section, and several other characteristics. Facebook connects users by adding an ability to click on any of the traits a user lists and links to a list of other users who share that trait. If a user stumbles upon another user with similar interests or one that they have had previous contact with, they may request them as a "friend". The term friend seems to have a loose meaning, as one user remarked "I pretty much ask anyone I have ever talked to be my friend". These friends are listed in the user's profile and have the ability to post messages on a user's wall. The creation of a unique profile for others to view is at the heart of Facebook and is thus the most widely used feature available.

The next popular feature of Facebook seems to be the ability to upload photographs for others to view. Users can add captions to each photograph in addition to identifying other users who may be in the photograph. These other names serve as links to the user profiles of each member, allowing a person to quickly jump between different users who they may or may not be "friends" with. During an observation a Facebook user said that looking at photographs "was a good way to see what his friends have been up to lately". The photo album feature seems to be gaining popularity as it is relatively new.

There are some aspects of Facebook that do not seem to be used much. Many users expressed that they never used the "Events" option. This suggests that people may still be wary of letting everyone know which events/parties/etc. they may be attending. We were somewhat surprised to hear this, given that users already display a significant amount of personal information already. Another function that is not used as often is the ability to post a message on the "Wall" of a user's profile. A user expressed hesitation since everyone can read the messages, and said "if I need to tell someone something I will just call or IM them". Therefore, it appears that Facebook has not achieved any success as a Social Life Organizer, as the majority of those surveyed reported no increase in social activity or student community activity as a result of Facebook.

Based on the survey questions and observations, users seem to view Facebook as a tool to find information about people they may know and to keep up with those people to some degree. Many users reported spending a significant time using the site and have extensive friend networks to show for it. In terms of organizing events, parties, or social gatherings, it seems that the Facebook does not offer the function users demand.

Style

Each of our survey participants indicated that they liked the layout and design of Facebook. They indicated that the interface with its white background, clean lines, and uncluttered design made the website enjoyable and easy to use. Some participants would have liked the ability to customize the layout of their personal Facebook site to better suit their tastes. However, most people felt that with Facebook's current easy to use and eye pleasing design, that user customization was not a necessary addition.

All of our survey participants indicated that website design is one of the critical factors that determine whether or not a website is useful and used often. Informal conversation with participants led us to an overall consensus that Facebook's popularity was due in part to its simple stylistic elements that easily conveyed tremendous amounts of information. This finding did not come as surprise and actually can be supported by a recent CNN article that found that people, in one-twentieth of a second, make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with a website.

Networks

All of our interviewees heard of Facebook from a friend rather than from internet advertising or other sources. Despite a lack of formal advertising, Facebook has done surprisingly well for word-of-mouth promotion. Furthermore, most of the people the interviewees had listed as their "friends" were people they went to college with. This leads us to believe that Facebook lends mainly to maintaining current friend circles rather than being used for finding new friends online.

Way of Life

Though few of our participants said that Facebook literally changed their lives in some way - it is evident from the almost universal frequency with which it is used that the service has some significant impact on the users' way of life. Most people inidcated that they never meet new people through Facebook, but it's clear from the information we collected that the service has a direct impact on relations between pre-existing friends. It seems that in some ways, many of our participants have become dependent upon the service for at least some of their social interactions.