Hello, we're going to discuss UnlockMe, a concept that allows social interactions when
Co-located in online activities.
So first of all let's stress the importance of informal social interactions.
These simple encounters and chit-chat that happen in personal life or at work,
like for example when you are queuing or when you're waiting at a coffee machine.
When people are isolated, they suffer from the lack of these very informal interactions.
We actually saw that at a massive scale during the COVID-19 pandemic when people had to respect
social distancing, they coudn't connect as they used to.
If you look at the literature, you see that from the very beginning of the internet
we tried to use this tool to connect with each other.
Things like co-browsing or online group collaboration came very early, then came social media with
nice temptation to connect there.
But we saw that, in studies it was proven that social media can actually lead to even
further isolation and a feeling of loneliness.
So there are dangers there.
Our concept UnlockMe takes the shape of a widget or browser plug-in that when activated
would look like this.
And when people are around, it will look like this, it starts to glow
so you are aware that you have people from
your network doing things online "near you".
Then you are free to engage with them in one-to-one conversation like this.
Or even broadcast to a broader group or to all your network if you want, in either synchronous
or asynchronous communications.
So there are two main mechanisms behind Unlock Me that are quite important.
The first one is Network segregation or how to divide your network into groups that are coherent
For two good reasons: you need that segregation to protect users privacy and also
actually to enhance the quality of the interactions.
You will talk more freely if you talk to the right group, to the right persons.
The other aspect is the context as well of what you're currently doing.
You will get more meaningful conversation with people that share the same immediate
interests.
So we are trying to categorize this activity that someone is doing online either broadly
or very precisely: which is exactly website, which articles.
We can do that quite easily with either text or image analysis.
So after the initial conceptualization of UnlockMe, we ran experience prototyping remote
user study with Zoom.
We interviewed 10 participants who were isolated and working from home due to the corona virus
pandemic.
We then showed them the concept of UnlockMe via a low fidelity clickable prototype and
then we situated them in the following six scenarios.
In the first Confluence scenario, they were browsing the corporate Wiki and they were
aware of their colleagues were online at the same time as them.
In the email scenario they were chatting with their colleagues who are checking their emails
at the same.
In the Netflix scenario, when they opened Netflix they had an asynchronous message waiting
for them.
It was from their best friend recommending them to watch Tiger King.
In the news scenario, they were looking at their close social circle who are debating
a controversial news article.
In the shopping scenario they were discussing with their family member whether or not a
TV would fit in their living room.
And lastly in the local community scenario they were exchanging grocery recommendations
with fellow shoppers and they were asking the shopkeeper about the stock.
With this experience prototyping we received very positive feedback about unlock me regarding
the usefulness ease of use and usability of the concept and all participants said they
would definitely use it in one or more of the scenario, but not every scenario was the same.
Clearly, nobody liked talking to their colleagues when they are checking their emails.
Also the news was not good preferred much but Netflix, shopping and local communities scenarios
were better, they liked it very much.
And with this positive feedback we could know the best chances for the future use of Unlock Me.
Our participants like the reliable recommendations they could receive from their close social
circle for either media or products using Unlock Me.
And they also could see themselves in scenario such as booking an Airbnb together with their
friends or like selecting a gift or purchasing something with their family collaboratively
making decisions using UnlockMe.
Also they were interested in connecting with their local community virtually online.
The concept was preferred because of the key features such as user group segregation, which
point was decentralizing the social media.
With user group segregation, they were guaranteed privacy, which is not there in the very public
social media and they preferred this very much.
Also, especially young users, they preferred the private media idea to share things only
with their close social contacts.
So thank you very much for watching.
This was unlock me and we are Sruthi and Christophe from NAVER Labs Europe.