18th Jul 2019
How might we...
...design a transparency and control experience for teens, whose needs are evolving over time?
A responsive and evolving approach to age appropriate interactions
Online experiences are growing more complex than ever before. How can Friendlee work for people with different maturity and data literacy levels across an ever growing number of use cases?
Product Context
Friendlee is a social app that allows people to organise their friends into groups to share photos, videos, messages and attend events. Every Friendlee account is specific to each user.
In order to provide the service, Friendlee is powered by some of the following data:
- User interactions
- Facial recognition
- Posting habits
Problem & Opportunity
Online experiences are growing more complex than ever before. How can Friendlee work for people with different maturity and data literacy levels across an ever growing number of use cases? How might we design a transparency and control experience for teens, whose needs are evolving over time? How might we take into account the difference between age, maturity and literacy?
Design Features
A contextual approach to age appropriate content
Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, Friendlee shapes the content and functionality available to people through a scale of maturity and digital literacy. The scale ranges from sheltered interactions — where the use and sharing of personal data is limited to basics — to a more open and flexible set of tools as young people develop over time and gain a better understanding of the implications of online actions.
Some core ideas on how to display limited functionality without depriving young people of context included:
Be open about the limitations of the functionality at hand Explain the reasons for those limitations When it’s time to move into a different stage of the scale, onboard people to explain what is changing and why
Design Features
Controlling my data, step-by-step
Because people’s ability to understand data use changes over time, Friendlee anticipates serving relevant information to people by understanding the type of content they are interacting with. From a request to sharing location to an advert within the platform, every data prompt is contextualised to educate and inform young people of the consequences of their actions online.
Next steps
Understanding the difference between age, maturity and literacy around data and privacy is vital to educate and inform young people about the opportunities and risks within the ever growing connected world we live in. Providing the tools and education for teens throughout their journeys within the service is part of the solution.
How might we build on Friendlee’s ideas to... Understand better the differences between age and data literacy? Design for different levels of maturity within the same age bracket?
