AOL Groups
AOL Groups was an online community where people shared things they cared about with their friends, family and interest groups. The goal of the research was to support the development of the next version of the product by understanding group dynamics and their needs. It was my first project at AOL and my responsibility was to conduct user research by myself and provide recommendations to the team. I used the following HCI methods for the research:
- Family study: Visited a family and observed how they interacted with family members, friends, or objects that were generated for or from group events.
- Interest group study: Attended two interest group gatherings and observed how members interacted with each other. I also interviewed a few members to under stand their motivation for participation.
- Disposable camera study: To gather user inputs from outside of the bay area, I came up with a DIY package that consisted of a disposable camera, a journal and a small thank-you souvenir from AOL. I distributed the packages to co-workers' friends and family members and asked to capture their social activities.
Screens shown on the pages are a few key slides from the final presentation.
