Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Ben Kozary, Ph.D.

Attitudes are polarized, and user engagement is down — social media is no longer as sociable as it once was. However, behavioral science suggests that, in spite of this negative climate, positive outcomes may be possible for those users who remain actively engaged on platforms such as Facebook. Here’s how…

Social media is a hot topic right now — but for all the wrong reasons. Take Facebook as an example; its mission is to bring the world closer together, but something has gone astray in the execution.

In November 2017, the BBC reported that an initiative to combat fake news, in which comments featuring the words “fake” or “lies” were pushed to the top of comment threads, resulted in substantial backlash. Although intended to serve as a signaling cue, this initiative unfortunately missed the mark with many users, for its failure to detect and account for context in comments.

Additionally, Facebook admitted in January 2018 that this and other attempts to prevent fake news — such as marking stories with a red flag — reinforced users’ pre-existing beliefs about the flagged content, even when those beliefs were objectively false.

In short, contrary to addressing the problem — and counter to its mission — Facebook’s efforts caused greater division among its users. In academic circles, the phenomenon responsible for this outcome is known as confirmation bias.

Rather than trying to forcefully change users’ beliefs by marking news as “fake”, behavioral science contends that a more appropriate approach to overcoming this bias is to nudge users to consider the opposite perspective when presented with content.

Coincidentally, a community of users who thoughtfully reflect upon alternative viewpoints aligns strongly with Facebook’s mission to “bring the world closer together”.

The challenge of solving for negative user experiences

Given the divisive effects confirmation bias can exert upon groups, is it any wonder a 2017 study found that, rather than connecting us, spending more than two hours per day on social media was more strongly associated with feelings of social isolation (relative to users who spent less time on social media)?

One suggestion I’ve seen proposed to address this issue is to transition away from an approval-based system of interactions (i.e., Likes, Shares / Retweets, etc.). However, while this approach could help to promote more positive interactions — and, by extension, higher levels of user satisfaction — within social media platforms, it unfortunately runs counter to two guidelines for good user interface (UI) design:

The designs that help users interact optimally are not necessarily the same as the designs users find most desirable; and
It is often better to settle for a satisfactory solution than to pursue an optimal solution (i.e., satisficing over maximizing).

The underlying business model of social media platforms relies upon maximized user engagement. And, while there is an element of social responsibility tied to these platforms (i.e., the companies behind them should arguably act in the best interests of users), it is also not prudent for these companies to alienate their users by fundamentally altering the underlying user experience (UX).

Why? For the same reason the majority of New Year’s Resolutions fail; why implementing organizational change is so difficult; and why many people relapse into previously established bad habits: Status-quo bias.

Put simply, people have an inherent preference for the present nature of things, and often view deviations from the status-quo as a loss.

As such, initiatives that aim to reduce negative user experiences, by way of substantial design changes, are likely to be ineffective, and result in user dissatisfaction. And, considering the negative effects already prevalent in social media, it makes no sense from either a business, or a social responsibility perspective, to implement any initiative that risks generating greater negativity among users — even for a long-term business and/or social gain.

Why Facebook’s solution could work

In January 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced one of his focal areas for 2018 was ensuring the time users spend on Facebook is “time well spent”, and that, consequently, users could expect changes to their UX. The first stage of change affects the newsfeed, for which Zuckerberg promised users would see more content from their family members and friends.

These changes come in the wake of growing negative sentiment, and a decline in user engagement on Facebook in Q4 2017. That is, recent experiences on Facebook have established a negative anchor in the memories of users.

However, by promoting interactions with those connections users value most, the ensuing positive experiences Zuckerberg expects — for those users who remain active — could be bolstered by the reference point created by this negative anchor.

This hypothesis stems from the service recovery paradox (SRP), which is typically applicable in a consumer behavior context. The SRP is defined as an instance in which an individual experiences higher levels of satisfaction after a service failure is corrected, relative to the satisfaction they would have experienced had no service failure occurred in the first place.

Crucially, although academic research has shown satisfaction improvements can be yielded through the SRP, there are nevertheless detractions to other important behavioral elements, such as trust. Trust requires consistency over time; hence, service failures — or, in this case, poor user experiences — erode trust.

Put simply, attempting to leverage a negative reference point, as per the SRP, is unlikely to serve as a catch-all solution to UX challenges. Yet, in the same way that confirmation bias and status-quo bias can help to explain users’ behaviors on social media, the SRP suggests the potential for success with Facebook’s latest initiative.

A bigger picture evaluation

In December 2017, research showed that passively consuming the Facebook newsfeed will make you feel worse about yourself.

The implication? When using social media, users need to be encouraged to actively engage (e.g., post content of their own, rather than simply reading content shared by others).

Zuckerberg’s latest initiative (i.e., prioritizing the content of those connections who are closest to a user) looks poised to tackle this issue, with the SRP even suggesting increased satisfaction for those users who remain actively engaged. In fact, this first step by Facebook seems to check all the boxes from a behavioral science and business perspective:

Move away from the promotion of heavily divisive content, to reduce the negative effects of confirmation bias? Check.
Minimize the degree of change to the UX, to account for status-quo bias? Check.
Maintain the current business model, which emphasizes maximal user engagement? Check.

Thus, this initiative appears to be a step in the right direction — but more work is undoubtedly required.

Extending Facebook’s solution: Using behavioral science to design UX systems for social media

As with most social media platforms, Facebook’s UX is designed around an approval-based model of engagement (i.e., Likes and Shares). This model complements people’s inherent need for self-enhancement and self-verification, in which they seek validation of their self-conceptions.

But, what if Facebook extended this approval-based engagement model to also capture exposure, by showing users how many others had seen their posts?

By emphasizing a discrepancy between the number of Views a post receives, relative to the number of Likes and/or Shares it obtains, such an approach would highlight that, within a user’s social media experience, approval is a scarce resource.

As the scarcity principle suggests, scarce resources are considered to be valuable. Hence, this approach should encourage users to post content aimed at narrowing that gap between exposure (i.e., Views) and approval (i.e., Likes and/or Shares), as part of their ongoing pursuit of validation.

Now, as I have described it here, this suggested change to the design of the Facebook UX sounds cold, manipulative, and devoid of empathy for the user; a calculated business decision aimed at maximizing user engagement by exploiting psychological biases… The epitome of a Dark Pattern.

However, if Facebook were to actively position this change as an illustration of a user’s reach within the broader social network (e.g., with a simple nudge that emphasizes, “Look at how many people have seen your post!”), it could create an opportunity to transform its UX in a very positive way.

Specifically, Facebook has the potential to reframe its users’ motivations from something self-serving (e.g., “Chase an internally-oriented goal for approval”), to something that can potentially enhance the experience of the wider user base (e.g., “Contribute something positive to your community”).

This is the crucial point here — because this suggested change aligns with Facebook’s mission to bring the world closer together (just like the academic approach to overcoming confirmation bias, as outlined earlier).

Looking to the future: Solving for other challenges to user experience

If users can be nudged to post more content designed to benefit others, rather than pursuing self-enhancement and self-verification motives, it’s possible their active engagement could be complemented with more genuine engagement.

In other words, this shift in focus for users could reduce the extent of profile curation currently seen on social media. By extension, perhaps this suggested change to the Facebook UX could double as a first step to tackle other negative effects confronting users, such as a “fear of missing out” (FOMO).

At this point, it’s difficult to judge how well this proposal would fare, if applied. The previously unsuccessful initiatives launched by Facebook illustrate that designing and implementing effective behavioral interventions to address its challenges is no easy feat — but as experimental researchers know, understanding what has “failed” helps to narrow the focus moving forward.

The critical importance of research

Before being rolled out system-wide, any and all hypothesized initiatives should be thoroughly tested and evaluated with rigorous research, which should be carefully designed to assess those specific hypotheses within the context in which they apply.

Until such testing has been conducted, these proposed initiatives remain nothing more than a series of hypotheses aimed at addressing UX challenges. The real strength of a behavioral scientist lies in their ability to understand and execute upon this point.

Anyone can learn about behavioral science principles, and propose interventions. However, only an expert behavioral researcher can evaluate those interventions, and their probable efficacy.

Crucially, that evaluation goes beyond simply asking users what they want. From a UX/UI design viewpoint, users struggle to express their desires because biases such as functional fixedness and goal fixedness serve as barriers to innovation, and constrain their perspective to the present nature of experiences.

Meanwhile, from a measurement standpoint, biases such as social desirability, leniency, acquiescence, and even mood state, can all stand in the way of accurate and insightful user expression.

Or, as Henry Ford did not say: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”.

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Dr Ben Kozary is a behavioral scientist and research design specialist living and working in New York. He holds a Ph.D. in Consumer Psychology and Behavior from the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Enjoy what you read? Share, like, and comment, to continue the conversation — and feel free to reach out: b.kozary@gmail.com

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Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com on March 7, 2018.

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Making Social Media Sociable was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Social Media Sociable

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