Social networking services (SNSs) have become integral in people’s lives to create and maintain meaningful relationships. However, their user interfaces (UIs) have matured into complex structures often manifesting as labyrinthine layouts that result in frustration among users – for instance, when trying to control privacy-related settings. In this paper, we address this problem with two studies. First, we assessed users’ expectations through an extended card sorting exercise, tasking N = 21 participants to group 55 common SNS features. Based on these findings, we describe four design considerations to improve a UI’s discoverability and support users in finding relevant features.
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Finding a Way Through the Social Media Labyrinth: Guiding Design Through User Expectations
A misalignment between SNSs and their users’ expectations is revealed, four design considerations to improve a UI’s discoverability and support users in finding relevant features are described and human-centred opportunities to mitigate unethical design are investigated.