Social Map

Ultimate yet impossible research goal To understand how humans communicate.

Communication products need to understand ‘human communication’

Need: to think beyond Gmail

Need: to think about broad communication

How, why, when, where people choose different communication tools

Why the need for two phones?

Meanwhile… Meanwhile…

Stopping self-referential design

Early vs. later research vs.

Need: user insight fast We need to start designing next week…

Field research not feasible

Only time to pick some people

60 minutes to understand communication behaviour 60 minutes

Social Map

Social Maps in our offices

Social Maps on the street

Required materials: paper + post-its

Building layers of understanding over time

Layer 1: People + Groups

Layer 2: Communication Tools

Layer 3: Recent Events

Layer 4: Sharing Content

Layer 5: Mapping Actual Behaviour

Layer 6: Sticky dots

Social Maps in China

Meanwhile… Meanwhile…

Development team observing research Research Participant Researcher Product Manager

Early trumps later research vs.

Social Map

Strong buy-in from the development team

Research finding: People’s groups are almost always separate

To understand how humans communicate. in 60 minutes some