Mello – Mindful Social Media
My bachelor thesis investigates how interface design can support a healthier and more conscious digital consumer behaviour. As a result I designed a social media app, that is mindful and respects its users.
Supervision: Prof. Matthias Edler-Golla
Tools: Adobe XD, Illustrator
Background
Social media shapes our everyday life, having both positive and negative effects. Most people are aware of those negative effects, but they find it difficult to get away from their excessive digital consumption.
Asking myself why it is so hard for us to change our digital consumer behaviour, I looked at different literature and studies. In the end I identified three basic causes within the interface design.
An endless flood
Social media is an endless flood of unrelated stimuli and information. This excess of impressions leads to a kind of work-through mindset. If you open the app, you quickly get sucked into it.
Hectic
The use of social media is characterized by a rapid change of focus. It triggers a hyperpassivity, preventing the user from deeper processing of the consumed content and from reflecting over their behaviour.
Attention
Push notifications or social pressure, such as the fear of missing out or the need for checking and comparing the number of likes and followers, catches the user's attention over and over again.
How should it be instead?
Although people are dissatisfied and frustrated with social media, they don't want to stop using it. The benefits seem to outweigh the negative effects.
In order to gain better insight into what people want out of social media, I looked at some studies and conducted interviews.
My conclusion: Quality over quantity. We should consume the right amount of good content. The goal is balance. But this requires mindful action.
How would social media have to look like in order to support this kind of behaviour?
Solution
Final Design
As a potential solution to the problem, I designed "Mello", an alternative social media app.
It is aimed at those who experience negative effects with social media, but at the same time do not want to be without it. Mello helps the user to use the app in a mindfull and reflective way. It reduces and shapes the content, slows down the activity and supports the user in maintaining a healthy attachment.
Mindfulness through
interface design
The organization and reduction of the content, as well as more friction in the interface design, gives the user the possibility for more concious behaviour.
The starting page does not as usually show an endless feed. Instead, it displays the newest five posts of different categories. Endless scrolling is not possible. A reducted and organized feed enables more depth.
"Topic of the month" is an article covering a monthly topic, which is then complemented by fitting posts. It gives the feed an object of duration and depth.
The main feed is structured in groups.
That way, the user is able to filter the feed according to his interests and won't be overwhelmed.
"Make me think"
The interface is intentionally designed with various points of friction. In order to get to the whole feed, the user has to take some steps. Slowing down the activity, gives the user the opportunity think about what he wants to consume. "Make me think" instead of "Don't make me think".
A feed that isn't endless
Supporting assistant
The assistant helps the user to achieve his goals of a valuable and healthy usage. It is a supporting system, consisting of several settings.
The assistant's eye follows the user whenever he is scrolling through the feed.
Modes
Three different modes make it possible to adapt the support to the user's individual needs. The more open the eye is, the more strictly the assistant intervenes.
Scenario:
Sophia set a daily break from 10 pm to 10 am and chose the strict mode. She opens Mello at 10:24 pm, but only gets to see a locked screen.
Settings
Various settings help the user to get more awareness of time and content.
The user has the options to set when he wants to take a break from Mello, how much time he wants to spend there in total, and whether and when he wants to get push notifications.
The user can turn the assistant eye off and on, hide likes and followers, decide how much content he wants to see per day, and block specific content.
Setting if and when the user wants to get notified.
Goals
The assistant keeps track of the user's goals. This allows him to see when he experiences difficulties.
Assisting Eye
The assistant's floating eye follows the user whenever he is scrolling through the feed. When the user spends too much time on Mello or looks at too much content, the eye becomes tired, making the user aware of his behaviour. In addition, it offers the possibility to filter the feed.
Profit
The financing of Mello can't lie in the placement of advertising, because the profit would depend on the users time spent on the app. Therefore the membership of Mello would have to be a one-time purchase or a subscription. Also, it would be interesting to consider only charging the use of the assistant.
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