For a very long time the one thing that’s consistently held my attention is the question –How could this be easier to use? The struggle for usability and the joy of a flawless interaction have been two sides of the coin that’s propelled me to where I am today. I think of design as the small-scale process that makes facets of our lives a little more manageable and pleasant. With that in mind, I find that the most fascinating element of design is the psychological portion, where we can use patterns and interactions to drive behavior in a user.
With increasing connectivity in the world, very few people do things in a vacuum, so I took a look at what problems could stand to benefit from a community working behind them. To that end, I turned to the problems facing social media– a platform that, while still wildly popular, is suffering from a massive amount of distrust. I find that the woes of social media platforms are in large part caused by the structure of the platforms.
I think that the problem of ruthless, negative, and exclusive online communities can be expunged through a more behavioral approach to the restrictions and allowances provided within the social media platform. In short: I want to design a social media platform that not only facilitates but encourages positive and inclusive community engagement using behavioral design techniques.