OurStories+User+Needs+Analysis

OurStories **User Needs Analysis** by **Payam Azadi** (azadi@umd.edu), **Brandon Britto** (britto.brandon@gmail.com), **Dan Sonthichartkul** (dsonthic@umd.edu), **Kevin Heiting** (kheiting@terpmail.umd.edu)

A (draft) user needs analysis for OurStories, including initial requirements, user interviews/survey, requirement refinement, and industry/academic support. toc

=Abstract= Following an initial description of what the OurStories concept is in the broadest sense, we decided to sit down and have a proper open-ended brainstorming session of what the application should look like. It happened naturally that as we were discussing the project and features and ideas about what to develop, there were several areas that we were unclear about in terms of how the system might be used, which dictates how we should build the system. Investigating the previous attempt at OurStories which failed miserably was incredibly telling as we knew exactly what not to do, and what will not work; failed approaches used to design the system that should be avoided.

Accordingly, having come up with several great ideas, some of which conflicted with each other, and others which might be ground-breaking or else completely useless and off-putting, we decided user interviews would be the most powerful and enlightening solution on how to proceed. We described the idea and goal of OurStories to users, and then asked nine questions centered around what would motivate them to use the site, how they would use the site, what the site might look like, and what features they would use or like if available. For example "would you use your mobile phone to tell or view stories?"

After completing several interviews with members of our target audience, people our age and younger with social media and mobile phone access perhaps with heritage in other nations, and older users, we had an infinitely clearer idea on how to design the application. Furthermore, after reviewing sites with similar ideas of "story sharing" and investigating sharing patterns, we have come up with a radically new vision of how the application will look and operate.


 * Note:** for purposes of this project, we want to generally assume that people using the system will not be //malicious//, i.e. carry intentions of crippling normal interactions or damaging credibility. However, the very nature of storytelling and listening is very subjective and people carry strong opinions, especially across cultural boundaries, so there must be some mechanisms in place to prevent harm being done by users who's motivation is not to harm.

=Initial Vision of User-base and Tasks/Features= In this phase, we decided to take the approach of creating tasks and establishing beliefs about them solely amongst ourselves.

The original thoughts for a user-base were kids between the ages of 15 and 23 who actively used social media sites and mobile phones, and "elderly" people (50+). We initially thought of having a Facebook application (we decided to drop this idea), a web interface, a phone interface, (a number to dial and recording story via telephone) and/or mobile application (iPhone, Android). We wanted people to be able to share their story either by typing it, recording with their voice, or recording using a camera of sorts (voice and video). The idea was to make accessing the application universal, and allowing the user to tell their story in the way they feel most comfortable.

This led us to identifying the following "basic" tasks. Unless otherwise specified, all tasks are for a generic 'web interface'; also please note that some tasks may conflict with each other:
 * User authentication system: creating an account/logging in; would only require email and password, ability to use Facebook account to login. Stories told would be permanently associated to an account, logging in would be required to leave feedback for stories
 * Unauthenticated system: stories would be linked to a teller by collecting an email address with the story and sending a unique 'manage' link to that address. Anonymous users could leave feedback or tell stories.
 * Feed system of most popular/newest/"what //you// would like the most" stories on the homepage in order to automatically suggest stories to users rather than them having to search for content they might like
 * Go to a random story feature, where someone looking for a story or looking for inspiration to tell a story, can jump to an arbitrary story.
 * Ability to search for stories through system of increasing specificity (continent, region, country, state/metro area and/or city etc). Requires each story to be geotargetted at collection time
 * Associating a story to a category from a predetermined list of categories at write-time, similar notion to classifying stories by 'genre'. Categories would be used on a search page to find or filter stories, and to intelligently deliver stories (integrated in the feed algorithm for example).
 * Ability for story tellers to go back and edit a story they submit ex post facto. Only the person who told the story should be able to edit anything about the story, not other "regular users"
 * Moderation platform, starting with a "flag as inappropriate" feature on story pages that can be used by authenticated users or moderators. Some logic to set a threshold of when a story should be removed from circulation.
 * Site-wide logic to treat stories "adequately" flagged as inappropriate as non-existent
 * Ability to tag a story with a specific language so that users reading the story are aware of what the original language of the story is
 * Ability to 'loosely' translate given stories into another language, probably a lingua franca (English, French, Spanish, Chinese, etc)
 * Ability to hide stories originating in a foreign language from ever displaying to a user speaking a language to which the story cannot be translated
 * Ability on story pages for a reader to "tell a similar story" and therefore become a teller; assumption that behind-the-scenes or otherwise there will be some sort of association between the two stories, if nothing else than by genre
 * Including teller biographical information in a story, at the discretion of the teller; ability to include certain information but not have it display to the public. Choices might include gender, age, ethnicity, etc.
 * Ability to "permalink" to a story or 'share' it with major social network outlets by a reader or a teller
 * Ability to add multiple photos to a story and choose where they display
 * When user wants to tell a story, ability to type the story, voice record, or video & voice record
 * In interface for telling a story by text, WYSIWYG editor.
 * An area in the website and on the mobile app where you could request to be called to record your story by giving your phone number; your phone will ring and an IVR will guide you to recording your story
 * A mobile app would allow you to view stories with similar approach as web version; ability to text in a story, or record a story using phone's microphone

In generating these features/tasks, several clear questions presented themselves:
 * Should there be a user authentication system?
 * Would people use their phones to tell or view stories? If so how?
 * Do users want to search for stories or be given stories to read?
 * How can we get users to want to share their story and contribute?
 * What "kind" of stories do users want to read? Are they looking for some theme or feeling or class or genre or category of story when they come to the site, and if so what?
 * How do we deal with language concerns?
 * Are there concerns about spam/abuse/"trolling"? If so how might it affect the experience?

=User Interviews & Reality Check= Once satisfied with a list of features/tasks to implement and having considered the questions that arose, we refined our questions to create a survey which we would present to users in our target demographic.

Interviews
We note a subtle distinction between interviewing and surveying. We wanted to get the most general answers to the most general questions, but we also wanted to give the people we were talking to the freedom to suggest their own ideas and get specific, of their own volition, without being prompted. Accordingly we established a set of survey questions, but conducted an "open interview". Here is the general outline we followed and the specific questions we asked, once we got someone to agree to help us with our great idea: > The idea is a website and service where you can tell a story, about anything, whatever you want to tell, and share it with the world around you. The ultimate goal is for people in one country to read stories about people in another country, and vice versa. The target audience is people our age and younger, who have cell phones and use social media (e.g. Facebook). Does that make sense?

> 1. If you were to come to this website, would you be willing to create an account, requiring just an email and password? Would you rather 'login' using Facebook? > 2. In telling a story, would you feel comfortable including your geographic information, such as city? > 3. Would you want to search for stories in some way, or have stories given to you? > 4. Would you consider using your cell phone to tell a story? If so how do you imagine doing so? > 5. What kind of stories would you like to write or read about? > 6. Would you be interested in leaving feedback on a story, and having feedback available on a story you tell? > 7. What might entice you to tell a story? How could you be motivated to share a story? > 8. If the stories were good and the navigation was easy, would you spend time on the site? > 9. Any comments, suggestions, or ideas?

Common Themes
It goes without saying that conducting these interviews broadened our perspective tremendously. While the common answers to most questions agreed with our gut instincts, common answers to some questions proved to be very surprising. There were also certain comments we received with perspectives and ideas that did not cross our mind.

The following are the mode responses we got to questions: >> People did not seem concerned with creating an account as long as just an email would suffice. Nobody expressed comfort in giving personal information. Some people expressed an interest in connecting with Facebook, while others expressed that they would never use this feature if available. >> Most people seemed to be comfortable with giving up to a major metro area, but not beyond. Few people agreed to get as specific as their individual city, and few people agreed to get as specific as their state. >> Everybody answered both, but almost everybody expressed a preference of one over the other. More people expressed primarily wanting to see a random story or be given a story than wanting to search for stories. >> Interestingly, the thought of recording a story via telephone call/voice crossed very few minds, and most of those were the older people's. Almost all young people answered mostly from the context of sending a text message. Older people were split between expressing interest in using a phone to record a story versus dismissing it as being too inconvenient. >> There were a variety of answers here. Many people answered essentially "anything". Significant amount of people expressed interest in stories that may be characteristic of the developing/underdeveloped world: war, disaster, etc. We might hypothesize that were we to interview people in foreign countries they may want to hear about the developed world. However most people included examples of what they might want to read about, and interestingly these were generally not specific to "categories" e.g. music, sports, entertainment, but tended to have more to do with feeling or purpose, e.g. "inspirational" or "educational/informative". Several people indicated wanting to read stories where they would learn something practical, and several people included the terms "business" and "technology" >> Unanimously yes, but more so, the response tended to go beyond and express significant interest in, or even demand interest in, the ability to share feedback. The ability to leave feedback was critical to many people. >> Following the last question, the most common answer was that other people would read it and leave feedback on it. Also several people commented outside of the scope of the website, and said that they would share a story if something crazy/out of the ordinary/unexpected happened to them. One user followed up by asking if he would have the ability to include pictures, to answer the inevitable "pics or it didn't happen". >> The most common response was some combination of usability and quality of story. Some people expressed spam/"trolling" would cause them to leave. Frequency of update and consistent quality were also noted. One user noted that the 'the interface should //stay// easy to use'. One user expressed that it should remain free. >> (Left to the next section) >>
 * 1) If you were to come to this website, would you be willing to create an account, requiring just an email and password? Would you rather 'login' using Facebook?
 * 1) In telling a story, would you feel comfortable including your geographic information, such as city??
 * 1) Would you want to search for stories in some way, or have stories given to you?
 * 1) Would you consider using your cell phone to tell a story? If so how do you imagine doing so?
 * 1) What kind of stories would you like to write or read about?
 * 1) Would you be interested in leaving feedback on a story, and having feedback available on a story you tell?
 * 1) What might entice you to tell a story? How could you be motivated to share a story?
 * 1) What would keep you interacting with the site?
 * 1) Any comments, suggestions, or ideas?

Insights, Adjustments, Verification
There were many things that people said unprompted, and interestingly some of these things repeated across multiple interviews. Many of the things that were said unprompted were things that had not crossed our minds.

One interesting insight is that a significant number of people express similarities of this idea, or their vision of this idea in action, to Reddit and to Twitter. Two people related it to the site FML (FMyLife.com). Relating factors included ability to "vote up" content in some way, the ability to leave feedback, the discreteness of the story ("oh so it's like Twitter except longer" was one comment), and the organization of content were things that were said repeatedly.

Another interesting concern raised by more than one person was the length of stories and the possibility of having limits on how long a story can be; that people may not want to read epic long stories.

With regard to using mobile phones, the prediction that the use of telephone calls to record stories would be geared to older users and would be used most frequently by older users was only half true. Some expressed interest in doing it, others dismissed it as being inconvenient. About mobile apps, people tended to express interest in a mobile version primarily for reading stories, such as while using public transit or when bored etc. Some people said that they would use SMS to record stories or would type stories into an application interface, others said doing so would be too tedious, or simply that they would not do it.

As to our question of whether we should give people stories or let them search through stories, people wanted to be able to do both, but based on answers to that question and other questions, overall it seems people would be more interested in being given stories to read or using a "randomize" feature. However, the ability to filter by category/relation and order by ranking/popularity was a method people commonly expressed interest in for actually choosing stories.

We anticipated that a feedback system would be highly regarded, but we see that it is not just an interest of users but a demand. Based on responses, it is significantly less likely people would use the site if feedback was not available than if it were.

Additionally, people tended to group/categorize/attribute stories more to abstract notions and feelings/emotions than to concrete categories, for example "inspirational" rather than "sports", however there was a common interest in the plight of the underdeveloped world, and probably vice versa in the greatness or even the excess of the developed world. At the same time, we have concerns about tellers categorizing their own stories as "inspirational". Perhaps striking a balance between lesser-charged words and purpose of writing would be better for both tellers and readers, such as "strife", "ideas", "educational" (informative?), "tradition", "desire", etc.

Overall, people's framework of 'story' and the use of this application both over the internet and by mobile phone tended to be grounded in written communication. There was low propensity to discuss the idea and possible features in terms of voice outside of the elderly, and nobody mentioned the idea of video recording. This is very telling, in that outside of stories told by telephone, people want to read and write stories, not speak and listen to them. We have no way to know if it is a better idea to forego trying to universalize to voice/video or not without trying, but for "version 1", it seems that most users would appreciate OurStories more and find it more usable if we limited extra-text stories to those recorded by telephone call.

Spam and abuse was a frequently noted concern, but people tended to agree a "flag as inappropriate" feature would be sufficient. There were also concerns of content being too "mature", "intense", or "graphic", particularly in the case of disaster and war related stories.

Nobody proactively expressed concerns about searching through stories by location, but they just may not have thought about doing so. Perhaps a good solution is to factor location into our algorithm in order to meet the ideal of this project, bridging international boundaries, and by default in our story-finding algorithms consider first stories in countries foreign relative to the current user.

We mistakenly did not draft any questions dealing with language/internationalization. Certain people expressed concern of how that might work. It seems a translation feature would be satisfactory.

Amended Key Users & Tasks
Taking into consideration all the feedback we got from users as well as the conclusions that it let us to, we have refined and amended the task list, but feel that our target users/audience does not need to be adjusted.

We make the following additions/editions from our original task list: =Competitive Analysis & Academic Backing= We have been able to find (with some instructor assistance) three websites with similar ideas of collecting and aggregating stories; through interviewee feedback we have identified three websites with similar social and content aspects; and have found academic sources supporting the hypothesis that mutual cultural learning promotes tolerance and acceptance and furthermore would be enjoyable for youth
 * User authentication system: creating an account would only require an email and a password. Ability to use Facebook account to login. Stories told would be permanently associated to an account, logging in would be required to leave feedback for stories
 * Feed system of most popular/newest/"what //you// would like the most" stories on the homepage in order to automatically suggest stories to users rather than them having to search for content they might like. Originating location of story would be included to give users content from foreign places.
 * Stories would be tagged with a location at worst broad enough to be able to discern cultural or demographic aspects; this would be used in our story-finding algorithms
 * Web interface would collect stories only via text, but should be able to play audio stories (those submitted via telephone call).
 * Associating a story to a category from a predetermined list of categories at write-time, similar notion to classifying stories by 'genre'. Categories would be used on a search page to find or filter stories, and to intelligently deliver stories (integrated in the feed algorithm for example).
 * Categories will not be concrete subject matters but pertain more to feeling and purpose
 * WYSIWYG editor for telling interface
 * A mobile app would allow you to view stories the same way the web application does. Would have the option of telling a story by typing. Should have a "dial-able" phone number for people who want to record their application
 * Content ranking system of "ups" or "likes", integrated intrinsic statistics and feedback statistics on search/story pages
 * Maximum content length for stories that can be adjustable over time. Ability to mark a story as "long" if it goes over the limit. This annotation would be included in the search and story pages.

Related Services

 * StoryCorps
 * This is a service which doesn't seem to have much relation with our application at all, outside of the general concept of "collecting stories". They take the approach of cataloguing specifically oral stories from people who are considered to be inspirational, or consider themselves/story worth telling.
 * The whole approach is geared as an interview, and general interview questions are suggested. Stories are taken by scheduling an on-site interview, or by conducting a "Do It Yourself" interview and submitting the audio files. Plenty of help is given on how to do the interview in terms of questions to ask, as well as technical considerations of recording an interview.
 * Perhaps the most enticing thing about StoryCorps is that stories that are accepted (seemingly all of them) are included in a Library of Congress collection.
 * ThisAmericanLife
 * Again, this organization does not seem to have much relation with OurStories, although it is closer related than StoryCorps. They create and present documentaries on local/current events or individual experiences that they consider extraordinary and worth sharing.
 * People are given the chance to contribute by submitting their "story" for review to the ThisAmericanLife team.
 * The approach is related because it aims to give a glimpse/insight into American life which is incredibly diverse, but it is different because it lacks an open/community element and also because there seem to be very specific types of stories that they want to present, as opposed to OurStories where the story can be about anything.
 * PersonalHistories (US Holocaust Museum)
 * Again, little to do with our concept, this site takes a significantly more "historical" aspect and uses people's story about their experience of major world events to give an insight into world history.

Services with Relevant Perspectives

 * **Reddit**
 * A highly community-based and social website, content is grouped by a very abstract "type", under which exist threads to which people can leave feedback: content rating as well as responses.
 * Rich in content, including pictures etc
 * The topics/categories seem to cover anything and everything and is completely open ended.
 * Highly social, pretty anonymous, widely acclaimed interface and ease of navigation
 * Twitter
 * Takes approach of broadcasting bursts of information. The relation is that information can be anything or can be targeted, but more so can be tagged using hashcodes, and there are search features which allow you to see all posts having to do with that topic. Allows you to see "what's trending" in real time
 * Time, location, and poster are pivotal
 * Users carry concerns about use/switching because they may feel that their updates are not being received by a wide-enough audience, since people have to specifically follow you or otherwise find you either through other Twitter users or through your tagged posts. Building a following, literally, can be challenging.
 * FMyLife
 * A system where people can submit blurbs about something that happened to them that sucks tremendously, and other people can leave feedback agreeing "your life sucks" or saying "you deserved that".
 * Complete openness of subject matter, can be anything, and feedback can be left (as above) or in open-ended comments. Posts can be tagged arbitrarily
 * The system decides what posts to show you, but you have an option to search, such as by highest rated etc.

Academic and Societal Support

 * International Day of Tolerance
 * Sponsored by UNESCO (a division of United Nations), the declaration of this day places significant emphasis on education as the most effective means of preventing intolerance; that social dimensions supporting globalization and global communication play a pivotal role in tolerance,
 * Affirmation that intolerance is the single biggest threat to the civilized world and human progress, and as before stated, stems for ignorance and poor education.
 * In a nutshell, supports the idea that the greatest protection against intolerance, considered to be humanity's biggest threat, can be mitigated by education and learning about each other - the inherent goal of OurStories.
 * Source (accessed 10/4/11)
 * UMD HCIL research on International Children's Library communities, 'allowing kids from around the world speaking different languages and from different cultures to come together using activities related to books'
 * " Findings from preliminary evaluations of the team's research reveal that children are excited about communicating with children in other countries and like to share images of and information about themselves."
 * Supports that youth are excited about the idea of sharing and communicating with other youth around the world - supports hypothesis that youth in general would be excited in sharing with other youth in the rest of the world, another central concept of OurStories
 * Source (accessed 10/4/11)

=Original Interviews= Go to all original interviews

=MS Word Original= Please note that this Wiki page is the most recent and authoritative source of the project; attached is the original document in MS Office 2007 before translation into Wikitext and accounting for minor revisions.