Summary
This qualitative research project was undertaken as a part of Understanding Social Behaviour , where behaviours exhibited by users on a social media platform were studied. Drivers of these particular behaviours and how different features in the platform are enabling or amplifying these behaviours were analysed.
Research methods such as auto ethnography and netnography helped form hypothesis. Simulations were created to help in validating these hypothesis and these validations were further taken up to generate design directions.
Design Process
Secondary & Primary Research
Application of Research
Methodologies
Understanding and analysis of Behaviors & drivers of behaviors on platform
Hypothesis Formation
Simulation Design & testing of hypothesis
Validation of Hypothesis
Application of tested hypothesis for New Product Directions
The platform
Quora
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A place to share knowledge and understand the world better
Quora is an American question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, followed, and edited by Internet users, either factually or in the form of opinions.
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Quora has got over 500,000 topics live on the site and stands out as the second largest library next to Wikipedia. Its popular writers on average get 1 million page views in a month.
Few facts about Quora
300 Million
monthly active users
43/57
Female to Male ratio
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40% of the traffic from mobile users
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63% of the traffic comes from online searches
Quora has higher concentration of adult users than other popular publishers.
Buisnesses using Quora Ads are seeing up to 4X more conversions.
India is the fastest growing market for the company.
Over 70 Mn monthly unique activities (in English) from India.
Primary Research
Point of Views
Curiosity
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Feedback​
Self Directed Learning
Lack Of Judgement
Discussion
Variety of content
Why do people use Quora
Business Promotion
Reach
Time Factors
Unique Knowledge
Sharing knowledge
Domain Specific knowledge
Prescence in different languages
Resource for research
User Journey
Seek Information about Quora through different sources
Sign Up
on Quora
Choose topics that interest you
Engage yourself into reading
or writing posts and asking questions
Ask a question
Involve yourself in
Personal Messages
Commenting threads
Keep up with the
notifications for
other relevant
Indulge yourself in
liking / disliking /
Commenting
Browse home page
with topics selected
Ask questions to
specific people
Stay anonymous and Engage yourself into writing posts and
asking questions
Follow People
Answer questions
Netnography
Behaviours & Drivers
Affirmation
People having opinions or a particular take on a topic land up on Quora, to affirm to one set of opinions.
Quora becomes a source of content in case of making opinions or affirming to certain opinions.
A person with a slight inclination towards something finds a place where they can affirm their beliefs. The commenting section also plays an important part in affirming your opinions. Engagement here is often a space where you assert your opinions.
Exploration
The vast repository of varied content including
Movies, Television, Sports, Food, Technology, Startups, Career advice, Parenting, Children, World politics, economics, Major news events. Quora has some of the most interesting, varied and gripping contents that you can find on an online platform, thanks to the diverse database of users. This also helps one discover and explore new interesting areas. Often times the images used on the post or the caption of the topic are really attractive, it actually gets you hooked to the app. The user ends up consuming a lot of information than what he/she had initially intended
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Aggression
Engagements becomes aggressive after a point when there is a clash in point of views or a mismatch. Agression usually happens when there is a lack of affirmation or conformity.
This is further enhanced by technical features auch as downvotes and reporting the user. Eventhough Report function was intended for the people who are genuinely facing problems regarding irrelevant content, it is used to silence POVs that does not align with the majority
Networking
Quora has an inbox that allows users to send private messages to one another. Its function is to communicate with people you have connected with on Quora.
This also acts as a networking tool. It allows you to connect with people of similar interests outside of the question an answer format, but you aren’t forced to add them to your personal network right away.
Prejudice
Quora with its credentials creates a pre-concieved judgement about a person you follow. There are tags given by quora to its users depending on the amount of engagement he/she has done on quora over the time.
Perceived by some as intellectual platform. Hence few feel hesitant to comment, because they think they are not well informed to be answering here [This trend is seen for domain specific subjects].
Prejudice against people on the basis of genetic, ethnic, religious, sexual, or other markers of otherness is bigotry, which reflects mainly in the threaded comments.
Quora has an “upvote” “downvote” feature. Simple in execution – you simple press the “up” or “down” button beside an answer – this feature has become an essential part of Quora’s operating system. By voting an answer as good – an upvote – or poor – a downvote – it lets users to filter answers, allowing the most useful answers to be ranked at the top.
Drivers
Conformity
When you are faced with a subject or topic you have not
much clarity on, Quora becomes the place where you can get to know opninons and point of views of others.
From the available set of information accessible to you here on the platform, user tends to confirm to the ideals or point
of views that is more relatable to him/her.
Reliability or agreeability to an answer is more when it is well articulated, with good hang of grammar.
Quora is also used for self evaluation where you give control to the other users by the process of validation of your choices and interests.
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Trust
There is a tendency to trust content that is well framed,
grammatically and vocabulay wise. The articulation of
the content plays an important role too. Self presentation
plays an important part here. The trust on content
is related to techical features such as likes, upvotes and
shares. Features such as “Credentials & Highlights” on
a persons profile, which further talks about the expertise/
domain and the content views of a particular
person, tends to increase the trust and reliablity on the
content.
The majority of people conforming to a specific topic is
been trusted rather than the content which is wright
Anonymity
Every one above the the age of thirteen can sign up on quora. With the use of anonymity feature you are not concerned about being judged and thus this platform becomes a very open space for groups like LGBT, divorcies, physically challenged, and topics such as sex, early pregnency, individual and group insecurities, weaknesses, mistakes.
- There are people with different beliefs and interest in every corner of the world and the global connect of the site creates connections among any social group, overcoming geographical boundaries, difference in identity, age, sexuality, profession, religion
etc.
Alturism
Users share tips, advises, suggestions for improvement etc abudantly on Quora. This can especially be noticed in questions related to exam preparations, education related spaces etc
Auto netnography
*Auto-Netnography is a research technique that borrows heavily from auto ethnography, tailored to study how people interact on online communities. The researcher observes his/her own feelings, triggers and behavior to understand the experience of a user.
Aswathy
Gets navigated from one topic to another while reading
Starts posting questions related to different types of topics. Gets more response for self help related questions. The quicker responses were received for technical related or expertise related questions.
While requesting for answers, there is an option for asking questions to 25 people. There is a tendency to ask for answers to people who have answered the most questions in the given topic and whose expertise is more in the given field.
Curiosity in me leading to look further or read further on few topics which I found in Quora
Upvotes interesting answers.
My questions on heated current affair topics such as “passing away of Sushma Swaraj” got clubbed with similar questions, although what they mean are not the same. The response rate for such questions were more but not elaborate answers were received.
Answered one question about NID and keeps on getting requests for answering NID related questions for a really long time. Gets irritated about getting the same pattern of NID questions to be answered, popping up in my notifications.
Fascinated about the involvement and engagement of older people, after their 60s (few of them are also Top writers). Reads their answers on different topics to know their perspectives, experiences and point of views about the current scenarios.
Simran
Quora taken as a space to put up our self expressions.
It is interesting to involve myself in commenting as am able to put my opinion and see how people react or respond to it. In the process i have understood a major difference in my behavior and the way how others persue a individual or a group on a judgment of them depending of them falling in the castigates, in group or out group.
My written post were about generic information like ‘skin care’ & ‘health care’ and so i have received replies from other countries as well
This app takes a lot of your time if you are engaging and contributin. And also a takes a lot of your mindspace
Personal topics seems to be much more interesting than any other topics to me as i don't trust on the scientific content written here and also the facts are outdated and still show on the top of the page if the new updates are not contributed by anyone.
Hypothesis
The sense of anonymity provided by the platform, amplifies the disclosure of personal experiences and personal failures.
People do not hesitate to put out the lowest points in life, on Quora, unlike other platforms. Moment you
remove inhibitions, there is a drive to communicate the failure aspects of life when the sense of anonymity increases
Simulation Design
Intent
The intent was to test the following aspects of hypothesis:
Effect of anonymity on disclosure
Discussion of negative experiences when anonymity is involved
Method
The students were divided into two groups of 15-20 students.
Interaction with both the groups were carried out at different time.
Both the groups were ask ed to write feedbacks and their experiences about the FVD module on an A4 paper.
Group A was asked to write the name of the student and discipline on the right side of the paper. Whereas group B was told not to reveal their identity. Non disclosure of their identities were promised for participants of Group B
Observations
Non anonymous group
In case of the non anonymous group, students were writing from as a representative of a group or in grammatical terms passive voice.
These responses were much shorter, crisper and to the point.
Responses were :
- Precise
- Given in terms of what can be done or achieved
- Areas of improvement
- Lacking points
- As a collective opinion
More justifications for their statements were given.
Anonymous group
More explanationary in terms of the experiences.
Addressing from first person while writing responses.
More personal.
Sharing personal journey.
Difficulties faced.
Talks more about oneself.
Factual statements.
Focusing more on negativity
Longer feedbacks than the other group.
Experience of going through the whole process.
Not mentioning about what to improve or solutions
Simulation Analysis
If people will perceive you to be stupid, overconfident, egoistic
" What will others think about me "
Fear of loss
Social status
Straining relationships
Rapport
Why do users have inhibitions to put out their views?
" How will I face others after this"
" Will I lose my reputation
" I don't know enough"
Anonymity & Inhibition
Give a man a mask & you will see his real face!
Concealment of identity
Courage to do things you otherwise don’t do
No signs of disapproval &
indifference which you have to deal with face to face
For example, a therapist always sits behind you so that you don't feel judged by what you say or you are not aware about the facial expressions of the person in front of you
Invisibility
Why is inhibition different on Quora than other platforms
Anonymity provides opportunity to separate actions from their real world and identity.
Absence of real life friends/ followers you interact in daily life.
Feel less vulnerable about opening up.
Action cannot be directly linked to rest of lives.
Quora is not used as a platform, in which you follow your real life circle of friends unlike platforms like facebook or instagram where you add friends from your circle. At the end of the day, this becomes a platform in which your objective is not to keep in touch with your real life circle but rather to explore and understand new things.
Incremental Design Changes
Proposing introduction of “Quora Life” in which users are free to discuss their issues and experiences, share insecurities and find support.
This feature would help in adding more human value to the platform by taking Quora beyond only Q & A.
Currently Quora does not enable user to track activities on questions that you ask anonymously. Unlike other pages of the app, on Quora life, you get an option to ask questions anonymously and trace the engagement or follow it after asking.
Anonymity provides. Opportunity to separate actions from their real world and identity.
