User experience interface

North-Northeast to South-Southwest interactive installation

This project is a digital interface embedded in a broader UX installation, aimed at increasing awareness regarding the influence of social media on political polarisation, and providing users with strategies to avoid polarising influences in personal social media use.

The interface acts as a representative simulation of political polarisation on social media, forcing users to align themselves with one of two opposing and extreme stances on a range of social issues.

The account details and textual content of the simulated social media posts as well as the informational content interspersed throughout the interface are produced by project collaborators, Edie Squire and Mitch Hayward.

Digital interface

The overall style of the interface is inspired by that of historical computer terminals, borrowing its high colour contrast and the symbolism of its technical syntax to situate the experience of engaging with the interface in an evidently digital realm.

At every other section of the interface, the user is presented with a range slider and two social media posts with opposing positions on the same topic - one highly progressive, and the other highly conservative.

Existing familiarity with the conventional use of a range slider informs users' behaviour when interacting with it; The design suggests that users can indicate their personal stance on a spectrum between the two provided social media posts, but the interface forces the handle to snap to whichever extreme users' placement is closest to.

This interaction is designed to represent the contrast between the dichotomised values amplified by social media algorithms and the breadth of opinions held by social media users in reality.

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The interactive range slider section is replicated 5 times, contextualised by different political issues and styled with imitations of different social media platforms' UI.

Each slider is followed up with an information panel which incrementally guides users through what online polarisation is, how it manifests on social media, and strategies to insulate oneself against its influence.

The experience provided by the digital interface ends by introducing an analogue activity which constitutes the remainder of the installation.

Application