Dopabeans Wiki Page
Welcome to the Dopabeans Wiki!
In this Wiki the Dopabeans project Cozmos will be explained and access given to all sources, research material etc. that is part of the development and creation of this project. The Dopabeans team consist of six members: Ashleigh-Rae O'Neill, Brooke Powell, Cassandra Carse, Cassia Gully, Sophie Bates and Vanessa Ackermann.
Social & Mobile Computing DECO3500 Sem. 2 2021
The project Cozmos is a Social & Mobile Computing project created with the goal of making communication and the creation of friendships easier for adults with ASD.
A full project overview on Github is provided via. the following link (ReadMe file included in this link): https://github.com/ashleighrae/dopabeans
To view our conference poster, please visit the following link: https://www.canva.com/design/DAEswNLrofk/2yBr0sEGgN6iWNDBhNZF4Q/view?utm_content=DAEswNLrofk&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton
To communicate the message of Cozmos, we have chosen to develop a Social Media Strategy. The promotional material is available on the platforms Facebook and Instagram. The goal of the strategy is to gain new users through social media. We chose the Social Media selected due to the age of the target audience, young adults (20-35), being active on these particular platforms. Using these platforms we can spread the message and information about Cozmos in a relaxed, creative and fun way. The main means of communication is through several posts, both informative and more fun memes. We want Cozmos to be connected with a relaxed and fun feeling of inclusivity - an online space for everyone but in particular designed with the ASD user in mind. A series of fun and inspirational hashtags and quotes are designed to help create a big online Cozmos community feeling.
For access to Facebook page: Cozmos Facebook Page
For access to Instagram page: Cozmos Instagram
The final prototype developed can be viewed through the GitHub link provided. The final prototype is a chrome extension web clipper that allows the user to create their own collections on the Cozmos website. Here users can share their special interests and hobbies with each other, chat, and discover new friendships.
To discover the problem space of adults with ASD we started out with some initial research into the space. The initial research consists of literature reviews, qualitative enquiry through surveys, interviews and ethnography and research into existing solutions. The goal of our initial research was to gain an overview of the problem space, then we wanted to be sure that we also gained an understanding of what is currently being done on the area and what solutions already exist.
We conducted literature research into a wide range of sources. Below is the link to our document library in Zotero: Dopabeans Zotero Library
All members of the team shared their reading to the Dopabeans Zotero and read through what the other members had added to the library. Key findings were written down and used for the first assessment.
Literature research collection: Literature Research Document
The key outcomes from the literature research were:
- The is limited research conducted within the space of female ASD individuals. Most of the research focus on men or children. This often results in a later debut of diagnosis for women
- Computer mediated communication is often preferred by individuals with ASD
- Communication can be difficult for individuals with ASD - this is both due to internal and external factors
- Awareness is important when wanting to enhance communication with individuals with ASD
To obtain further information about our target audience we conducted three semi-structured interviews. The documentation of this can be found in the link: Interviews
Next the team used qualitative surveys to get more user data, here 26 participants participated and could anonymously express their feelings about living with ASD. Survey, results and findings: Surveys
The key findings from the interviews were:
- Gender is not of great importance to the participants. Female identifying ASD individuals wanted to connect across of genders and had no particular interest in what gender the persons they would connect with were.
- Special interest are important. It was expressed that special interests made it easier for the participants to communicate and was something they could talk a lot about.
- Is is important to the participants not to be placed into certain degrees of ASD or boxes. When developing a solution we should therefore not try to develop for a certain "degree" of ASD but rather a solution that everyone can use but in particular accommodates ASD users.
We quickly discovered that it was important to study the online environments that exists within the ASD space. This let us dive into Facebook and Reddit's many fora and groups about ASD. We conducted our research by observing the posts and the online environment, while at the same time interaction with users through a post. Apart from this one of our members have significant experience within the environment and was able to contribute with important findings throughout the whole research process. Online fora and posts: Fora and posts Research Findings from Online Spaces
Key findings were:
- The online groups are difficult to interact with, unless you yourself identify as an individual with ASD. Most groups would not allow research and to join groups you will often be asked to promise to not share the content.
- Reddit was a great way of gathering data about the group
- There exists great support in the environment for development of solutions to individuals with ASD
To understand what solutions currently exist within this space, the team undertook a small research task on finding out what existing solutions exist.
Key findings:
- AAC: Augmentative Alternative Communication - ASD individuals would sometimes prefer to express themselves through other measures than speech. AAC are methods that are used in addition or instead of speech to express one self.
- The Meetup: A platform based on organizing events, a way of finding groups in-person/online who share your interests. Can select which day, online/in-person preference, distance, and category.
- Hiki: Friendship and dating app for Autistic adults. Focuses on celebrating neurodiversity, involvement of the ASD community has been the primary focus. Created because of the difficulties those with autism have with dating apps.
- There is a gap for a technology that connects people with autism based on their special interests.
- It is important that we create a purely-ASD technology, as it is generally easier to meet and socialise with other neurotypical people, without having to ‘mask’.
Two design frameworks were mainly used as inspiration for our design process.
- The Double Diamond Design Innovation Framework. This model of design fits perfectly into the iterative and user oriented design process that we desired for our project. It consists of four phases: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver. We started out discovering our target users (Young individuals with ASD), then we defined our scope for the project, made a problem statement and Ideation . The steps were repeated until we were satisfied with the research outcomes. Then using the methods mentioned above we gathered more data and created a fitting Low fidelity prototype. The low fidelity prototype can be viewed here: Demo of LowFi Prototype . Following the Low Fidelity prototype we conducted user testing and iterated upon the prototype. The current High Fidelity Prototype presented at the Expo was then both user tested and functionality tested as described below. From this we went into the final stage of delivery and create Design Guidelines as outcome. The idea of using the Double Diamond will then be that we continue to repeat this process until we find there is a user product fit.
- The Design Location Dependence Framework:. This Framework was used to make sure our solution would result in an interactive experience that was both playful and location dependent. We especially used the framework to understand and guide the significance of a strong "Foundation" for our design. "People" and "Resources" were key factors influencing our initial research and guiding us towards creating a problem statement. For the second part of the framework "The Experience" we created a "Narrative" about the young adult with ASD that wanted to create meaningful connections online, but simply was missing a creative free tool to obtain these friendships. The narrative was mainly created from our research findings and later from user testing. Lastly an important aspect of the framework is the "Public Face" to follow this we created a Social Media Strategy that will represent and showcase how Cozmos will spread into the ASD community and hopefully make a difference.
User testing summarised results: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lpO14YQ=/?invite_link_id=423039054279
User testing raw data: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-NM-ASrsPBbWj2u_Z4r83qDAtTPELdxI
The two users testing the prototype have ASD, making their interpretation of the system particularly noteworthy given the target user group of the application.
The system goal was consistently understood across test users, with both participants identifying it as a space for users to share knowledge around a special interest and connect with others over shared ones. Further, they both agreed that the format is particularly effective for people with ASD in allowing for organisation of special interests and niche collections.
The Facebook and Instagram social media pages received great feedback and engagement, with both participants commenting on posts resonating well with their experiences and finding memes funny. Their comments highlighted that the social media page was a good balance of comedic, welcoming, and relatable messages. One participant thought the marketing could be slightly more explicit for ASD people, a future implication of this will be to provide an about section of the website discussing the inspiration of Cozmos and a social media post saying Cozmos is neurodiverse friendly.
Based on additional feedback, future considerations for functionality include: privacy features for messaging and personal spaces, bookmark resources, mark favourite spaces or collections, an explore page, and ‘add’ friends.
Navigation was consistently identified, verbally and through user hesitation, as an area needing improvement. Providing a visual indication of where the user is within Cozmos is a definite future feature for the GUI.
From the User Testing undertaken we have developed the following future Design Guidelines and Principles for us to follow in the next iteration of the project:
- The solution must allow some creative freedom to the users
- The solution should be easily organised and must not create "chaos" but allow structure
- The solution is not designated a particular gender
- The solution should be promoted in a casual and fun way
- The solution must consider user privacy and offer a secure and ethically correct space for its users
- The solution must be developed in a strong co-design process with young individuals with ASD
By following these Design Guidelines we will ensure to keep a user centred focus in the development of the final product.
The scope of the first Stand Up in week 8 was to introduce the audience to our selected space, initial research and provide an overview of how we would continue our work and design process.
The PowerPoint from Week 8 is to be found here: Stand Up Week 8
The feedback provided to the team in week 8 was overall:
- The research conducted is very thorough and shows a good research process!
- Try to bring focus towards what product you would like to create, it is okay to start creating a prototype that might later not quite fit the users and then try again using the research findings.
- Innovative idea to be doing a self designed design activity to explore user needs
The PowerPoint from Week 10 is to be found here: Stand Up Week 10
- Excellent user research, very thorough.
- It is important to focus on the technical aspect and your prototype now.
- It is okay with a limited amount of test users, given the circumstances and choice of target audience.
In our project work the limitations have been:
- Participants: ASD is a challenging and existing space to study, it takes time to create the right connections and find participants. We now understand how to connect within this space and for future works it will be interesting connection with 2-3 ASD individuals in a Co-Design workshop or activity to further develop the product.
- Web clipper: Using our current prototype the user is able to use the chrome extension to copy the link of the resource desired, for future works this will be a web clipper (screenshoot) of content directly into the users collection.
- Messaging and chat: In the current prototype the users are able to connect with other users through a simple chat system connected to the individuals board. For future works we would like this to include a private messaging system, so that the users can continue their conversation.
- Safety: We have an ethical responsibility to keep Cozmos a safe space and avoid Fake-news and inappropriate content. This will be done through the Social Media strategy securing the right individuals join and a profile system that connects individual users to all content that they create or contribute with.
This project timeline and scope has been managed using GitHub, by creating issues assigned to individual team members. Overall the work has been divided into development and UX/UI work. All members have contributed to all steps of development and are familiar with the work of the other team members. Communication has primarily been through Facebook Messenger and weekly meetings on Wednesday and Thursdays in the designated studio sessions.