Aware

Introduction /

Background
For my senior capstone project, I collaborated with a team of 4 to design and code a web application to address the problem of data privacy. Our solution was tailored specifically to data collection on Facebook.

Problems
- How might we help users retrieve personal data?
- How might we help users understand what information Facebook has about them?
- How might we help users adjust their privacy settings on Facebook?

Goal
Build a tool to help users understand their Facebook data and safeguard their online privacy.

Research /

We conducted user research through interviews, surveys, literature review, and competitive analysis.

We conducted a survey among social media users to gauge sentiments about platforms' data privacy.

We conducted a competitive analysis of 24 social media privacy tools to see how we could differentiate our solution.

Key Insights
- the majority of social media users are concerned about online data
- most users are unaware about data collection practices on social media platforms
- a minority of social media users have downloaded their personal data files

User Flow /

I created early prototypes of our proposed concept.

Feedback
- Figure out what visualizations we can create with the data from Facebook file
- Focus on Facebook data only to meet development scope

Wireframes /

Now that I defined the basic flow of our solution, I created interactive prototypes in Figma. To evaluate usability, I conducted 2 rounds of usability testing (5 users per round).

Design System /

I created early prototypes of our proposed concept.

For design inspiration, I went to Dribble and collected dashboards and design systems that captured the spirit of our product.

We utilized a blue and white color scheme to convey a friendly and modern tone, while reminding users this is a tool intended to augment the Facebook experience.

Final Solution /

Our final concept included changes that we implemented based on usability tests and feedback:
- metrics are organized into groups, ads, interests, politics data
- blue and white interface to promote continuity between our tool and Facebook
- easier-to-follow tutorial
-landing page that describes our tool

Capstone Presentation

Results /

Learnings
Over the course of this 2-quarter project, I learned how to contribute to an open source project, critiquing existing solutions while working within the constraints of an existing problem space. As I was brainstorming data visualizations, I learned about the limitations of data. Feedback from users and mentors also informed each of our 4 design iterations, teaching us the value of soliciting feedback and user testing.