Exploring the Facebook Experience: A New Approach to Usability

Abstract

The focus of this paper is to explore social networking sites such as Facebook in order to understand their recent success and popularity. Recent developments within Web 2.0 have provided users with more freedom to create their own unique user experiences. The conflict between traditional usability methods and user experiences are addressed through carrying out a Heuristic Evaluation to assess how well Facebook complies with usability guidelines and by conducting a user study to unveil unique user experiences. The findings of this study calls for a more holistic method of evaluation that redefines usability to encompass the user experience in line with future technology.

Full text

Exploring the Facebook Experience:
A New Approach to Usability
Jennefer Hart, Charlene Ridley, Faisal Taher, Corina Sas, Alan Dix
Computing Department
Lancaster University
InfoLab21, Lancaster, England
+44 1524 510318/510319
j.hart@lancaster.ac.uk, c.ridley@lancaster.ac.uk, f.taher@lancaster.ac.uk,
corina@comp.lancs.ac.uk, a.dix@lancaster.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
The focus of this paper is to explore social networking sites like
Facebook in order to understand their recent success and
popularity. Recent developments within Web 2.0 have provided
users with more freedom to create their own unique user
experiences. The conflict between traditional usability methods
and user experiences are addressed through carrying out a
Heuristic Evaluation to assess how well Facebook complies with
usability guidelines and by conducting a user study to unveil
unique user experiences. The findings of this study calls for a
more holistic method of evaluation that redefines usability to
encompass the user experience in line with future technology.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.5 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: HCI
General Terms
Measurement, Design, Human Factors
Keywords
Usability, User Experience, Social Networking Sites, Facebook,
Web 2.0, Evaluation
1. INTRODUCTION
With the advent of Web 2.0, social networking websites (SNS)
have been one of the main internet success stories in recent years,
Facebook
1
receiving most of the attention as it continues to
become a growing success. Contrary to prior predictions that
moving social interactions from face-to-face to text based media
would lead to an “impoverished communication environment”,
this new media has now adapted the use of social web services as
a vital means of interacting, communicating and sharing, thus
enhancing human connectivity and sociability [18].
1
www.facebook.com (social networking site)
According to Alexa’s
2
website, Facebook is the 7
th
most visited
global website, while MySpace
3
is ranked 6
th
. Both of these
websites attract from the same pool of primarily 18-30 year olds
and although different in style, they offer similar functionality [5].
However, in the UK Facebook is the most popular SNS, ranking
2
nd
, with MySpace only being 9
th
, therefore Facebook was chosen
to be the main focus of this study.
Most academic research on Facebook has focused on the concerns
of identity and privacy [5, 21]. Although users are free to share as
much (or as little) data as they feel comfortable with, Facebook
users express a greater amount of trust and willingness to share
personal data, despite personal profiles being searchable by anyone
on the network. The majority of users appear aware of the visibility
of their profiles and rely on their ability to control the information,
thus managing their own concerns regarding privacy [5].
Other recent research has looked at the relationship between the
profile structure and friendship articulations, [12] and social
capital accumulation through using online sites [6]. Facebook in
particular plays an important role in the process of forming and
managing social capital by improving self esteem and low life
satisfaction as well as crystallizing relationships that may remain
short lived [7]. Another particular aspect of Facebook that makes
it distinctly different from other SNS is the online and offline
trend. Members seem to be using it as a tool for maintaining
previous relationships, and as a ‘social search’ tool by which they
can investigate people they have meet offline. Members use the
site mainly to manage relationships initiated offline by
maintaining contact with old friends and getting to know new
ones. Other SNS carry out ‘social browsing’ or searching for new
online friends with the intention of moving that relationship
offline [12]. Facebook members use online channels less to meet
new people and more to intensify offline relationships [6, 21].
The success of Facebook is undeniable, but the reasons behind its
popularity remain unclear. Traditional usability methods used to
evaluate websites are being challenged as they do not consider the
user’s ‘felt experience’ when interacting with these new
technologies [16].
User experience is not new; as early as 1984, Malone [15]
published the first Heuristics for designing enjoyable user interfaces
for computer games, and Carole & Thomas [4] examined the
2
www.alexa.com web information service (traffic ratings)
3
www.myspace.com (social networking site)
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relationship between ‘ease’ and ‘fun’, and called for a scientific
study of fun in 1988 [17]. The slow adoption of user experience as
a research topic within the Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
research arena has been due to a number of reasons. One of these
is the difficulty to empirically measure user experience; whereas
usability has been extensively measured usually through Heuristics,
performance, time and number of errors. Thus HCI researchers tend
to focus on observations of behaviour and objective
measurements, and remain cautious about personal judgements
and opinions of users as they seem too fuzzy [17]. However, user
experience is set to be a major issue as technology becomes far
more ubiquitous and moves out of the office into the wider
environment. As Donald Norman advocates in his book ‘Emotional
Design’, “everything we do and think is tinged with emotion”, which
“plays a critical role in our daily lives” [20] pp.19.
2. METHODOLOGY
This paper describes an exploratory study involving 26
participants within the age range of 18-44, consisting of 16 female
and 10 male with the majority being students (85%). Over half the
participants (54%) had been Facebook members for over a year,
with the majority (92%) accessing Facebook at least 2-3 times a
week. All the participants were assured that information given
would remain anonymous.
The adopted methodology used in this study consisted of three
distinct stages. The first stage involved expert evaluation of
participants’ Facebook pages using Nielsen’s 10 guidelines [19].
The second stage involved performing structured interviews with
the aim to uncover trends in the patterns of Facebook’s usage, as
well as its perceived satisfaction. Finally, the third stage focused
mainly on collecting qualitative data through the use of self-
reporting questionnaires. This involved observation of participants’
interaction with their Facebook accounts, followed by in-depth
semi-structured interviews with the purpose to explore users’
experiences and to probe into their attitudes towards Facebook.
3. RESULTS
This section describes the study’s main findings in terms of the
results from the Heuristic Evaluation, and the outcomes capturing
and revealing user experience.
3.1 Heuristic Evaluation
The results of this evaluation show that Facebook performs poorly
with regards to traditional usability guidelines. Only 2 of the 10
heuristics are adhered to in Facebook, while 4 were rated as
having minor problems and 4 rated as having major problems. It
has particular problems with consistency and standards, error
prevention and recognition rather than recall. In theory, Facebook
should not be the success it currently is due to its failure when
tested using a traditional usability evaluation method. In order to
explore Facebook’s success – despite its apparent usability
problems – we progressed with a user study, the outcomes of
which are outlined below.
3.2 Pattern of Facebook Usage
Of the 26 participants, 77% stated that they visited Facebook
every day. The length of time spent on Facebook on each visit was
reasonably short with the most common duration being 15
minutes (42%) followed by 5 minutes or less (35%). When
explored deeper, it was discovered that it was not simply the case
of visiting once a day for between 5 and 15 minutes; rather, users
frequently visited several times a day, browsing Facebook, when
doing something else (usually an online activity) and then
periodically re-visiting Facebook. One user explained his usage as
follows: “I usually have Facebook open in the background, you
know when I’m doing uni work and then every now and then I’ll,
like… go and check for updates or just have a look around… do a
quiz or something… just as, like, a break from working”. This
new form of internet browsing, of ‘hanging around’ on websites
contrasts with previous web surfing habits that Jakob Nielsen
describes as: "Most people just want to get in, get it and get out"
[2]. In a situation where users are ‘hanging around’ on a website it
further raises the question about the relevance of traditional
measures of usability such as task completion time when
designing and evaluating social web services.
3.3 Perceived ’Ease of Use’
When asked to rate Facebook’s ease-of-use on a Likert scale of 1
to 5 (1 being “very easy”, 5 being “very difficult”) the majority of
participants (85%) stated that it was “very easy” or “easy”. The
remaining participants responded that it was “average”. None felt
it was “difficult” or “very difficult”.
3.4 User Experience
The investigation of Facebook’s user experiences was performed in
the light of two theoretical frameworks: McCarthy and Wright [16]
and Jordan’s Four Pleasures [11]. For this, we developed a brief
self-reported experience scale consisting of the ten most prominent
positive and negative aspects thought relevant for online social
networking. The positive experiences were fun/playfulness,
enjoyment, excitement, self-expression and curiosity; and the
negatives experiences consisted of frustration, embarrassment,
boredom, feeling limited and rushed. Participants were given the
pre-defined aspects characterising user experiences and asked to
associate ‘how they feel’ in relation to each of the Facebook main
features such as, browsing or sharing photos, checking other profiles,
joining a group or network, reading or writing on the ‘wall’, finding
new or old friends, creating or updating their profile, and adding or
using applications.
As expected, the features that were highlighted as being the ‘most
typical’ or ‘most often’ used were those that users felt created the
better experiences [Figure 1], for example, browsing photos,
checking other profiles or newsfeeds and communicating with
friends (the 3 top activities in terms of level of use) all rated
highly for positive experiences while rating low for negative ones.
Two experiences that were selected most often were curiosity and
enjoyment. Curiosity in particular was demonstrated during the
observations and interviews. During each observation of people
using their own Facebook account, they started at their home
page, which has a ‘news feed’ (or summary) of all recent activity
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Figure 1: Facebook features rated for positive experiences

of their friends. An example of curiosity is when one user navigates
to a friend’s profile due to an activity update shown on her
newsfeed. She then starts browsing her friend’s profile - “I’m just
looking to see if they’ve added anything interesting”. She clicks
on an application and goes through the process of adding it to her
own profile and then begins interacting with it. She explains that
this is how she got the majority of applications on her profile - by
seeing it on someone else’s profile.
Another interesting social aspect of curiosity that was commented
on frequently in the interviews was that of keeping an eye on what
friends are up to. This was often referred to as “stalking” or
“page-stalking” or just being “nosey”.
Users often referred to the social pleasure or enjoyment gained from
using Facebook. In fact, it was often said that it was the ability to
communicate with friends that was what “Facebook is really good
for”. One user explained that one of her main uses of Facebook is to
keep in touch with people she has recently met, “It’s like the stage in
between email and texting. It’s a bit more personal than email but
you’re not quite at the stage to give them your mobile number yet so
you add them to Facebook”. Another user comments on the
pleasure of the various methods of communicating: “I like it when I
get a message with a gift, or even just a gift. Like Elaine sent me a
block of cheese!” (This user is a lover of cheese). The many types of
communication (‘poking’, sending ‘drinks’ or ‘gifts’ etc) were also
favoured because they were quick and reflect positive emotions
within real life, like “hugging someone”.
Finally, Facebook provides a platform for self-expression or a means
of identification, as one user explains, “it’s just showing the world
who I am”; along with social pressure to appear interesting or as one
user stated “to prove I have a life!” This was even found in some
cases to be a motivating factor behind visiting Facebook - to alter their
profile, for example to change their status or upload new photos.
4. DISCUSSION
Both the quantitative and qualitative data suggest that Facebook was
an easy to use tool that enabled users to achieve their goal of being
able to effectively communicate with friends. However this did not
concur with the Heuristic Evaluations which found that Facebook
performed poorly in terms of usability. Could this be due to the
positive user experiences gained from using Facebook which
outweighed the poor usability? Despite the proliferation of
applications that create a negative user experience of frustration, this
was contrasted with the positive experiences of enjoyment,
excitement and fun. Applications that were personalised, yet simple,
quick and reflected real life were preferred. These include
applications like sending a special gift; as well as those applications
involving innovative ways of interacting with friends through the
use of games and quizzes in order to create pleasurable experiences.
The most significant aspects that emerged from our study and
pertain to user experience are outlined below, as they were
considered significant when they appeared as recurrent themes in
participants’ answers. This happened in two circumstances:
(i) when such aspects related directly to the aspects within our self-
reported experience scale, and (ii) when such aspects were emerging
as overarching themes throughout several experience accounts.
Pleasure
One of the most popular reasons for both joining and continuing
to use Facebook was social reasons. Jordan [11] identifies ‘Socio-
Pleasure’ as one of the four pleasures (along with Physio-
Pleasure, Psycho-Pleasure and Ideo-Pleasure) that makes for an
enjoyable experience. As a social networking site, Facebook
assists the facilitation of social interaction offering a plethora of
methods of interacting with friends, which is one of the
necessities of a social network.
Human need for pleasure and fun is as important as functionality
and usability. Products should include both the functional
pragmatic aspects as well as the positive ‘emotional’ and
‘hedonic’ user experiences to be successful [9, 10 & 20]. From
this study both emotional and hedonic user experiences were
declared using Facebook. Negative emotional experiences of
frustration, irritation contrast the positive experiences of
enjoyment, fun and excitement. These fall into the hedonic aspect
of ‘stimulating’ experiences which facilitates fulfillment [8].
Curiosity and Fun
Curiosity also emerged as another popular user experience and
was often accompanied by fun, which can be a compelling
motivator. Facebook takes advantage of curiosity by enticing
users in to find out more about their friends though the numerous
options on a profile page. A user is drawn in through the mini-
feed, groups, photos and applications which ultimately cause page
clutter leading to poor usability. Yet a user is motivated enough
to ignore the clutter in order to find out more about their friends.
This is particularly important for a website that relies on its users
to have no particular goal and who are open for their attention to
be easily grabbed.
Identification and Self Expression
The aspect of representing oneself to other people in a social
situation was a key feature within Facebook, which allows its users
to express themselves through the creation of personal profiles that
can be shared with friends. This hedonic aspect of ‘Identification’ is
similar to ‘Social-Pleasure’, which is that of representing oneself to
other people in a social situation [8, 11]. Facebook also allows its
users to individually express themselves and reflect their values in
many different ways, from exchanging photos to choosing to belong
to different interest groups. Similar to Ideo-Pleasure individuals can
express themselves through communicating their identity as a
personal form of self-expression which was very apparent in this
study. However, there was a feeling of limitation and confinement
reported with relation to creating unique profile pages and adding
applications, which appears to de-motivate users to update or
customise their pages any further.
Surprise and Serendipity
Serendipity refers to the positive aspect of making discoveries by
chance [14]. This can be illustrated by the most outstanding and
enjoyable user experience disclosed by those interviewed that of
the opportunity to make new friends and find old friends,
considered a reward for using the website. Facebook provides a
mechanism not only to find distant friends, but to reconnect to
past memories and preserve them. Similar to the hedonic aspect
of ‘Evocation’, that provokes memories of past relationships,
which can be very engaging and provide strong motivational
factors for users leading to a truly powerful user experience [8].
Privacy
Concern for privacy of data was apparent within this study, and
users had a more cautious approach when using Facebook. There
was a reluctance to communicate, upload personal photos, and
even update profile pages, due to the open nature of how data is
displayed and controlled by Facebook. The benefits of accessing
other members data in terms of finding what your friends have
been doing, looking up new and old friends appears also to have
its drawbacks. The aspect of ‘stalking’ was found to be a common
activity on Facebook, which was generally done in secret where
users felt guilty at intruding on their friends’ privacy.

This study has focused mainly from the user perspective in terms of
usability and user experiences. Recent bad press on Facebook’s use
of personal data has created a negative effect on their brand image
[1]. Creating a positive brand image can provide an emotional link
between Facebook (the brand) and its users [10]. This study may
not reflect the general population of Facebook users, yet is an
indicator of a possible future trend. Concern for data along with the
lack of control of the many applications now apparent within
Facebook can lead to a general sense of boredom and annoyance
which could impinge on the future use of Facebook.
This study only touched the surface in identifying the importance of
the user’s experiences over usability while interacting with social
networking sites like Facebook. The limited sample size constrained
the breadth and focused on current users which may have impacted
on the generalization power of study findings.
5. SUMMARY
It is evident from this study that while Facebook fails in
traditional usability evaluation terms it excels in providing many
positive user experiences for its vast community of members. As
a social web service it not only provides a great deal of social
pleasure but provokes curiosity, provides a base for self
expression and evokes memories of the past, along with a myriad
of emotional and hedonic user experiences.
In a system where the user has a specific goal in mind and
satisfaction arises from qualities such as ease of use and enhanced
productivity then guidelines such as Nielsen’s 10 heuristics are fit
for purpose. However, these traditional usability methods do not
capture the aspects of users who are looking for fun and pleasure
while ‘hanging around’ on the WWW. Therefore this calls for a
more holistic approach, with the need for new design guidelines
to support the modern day web experience.
“…utility and usability are important, but without fun and
pleasure, joy and excitement, and yes, anxiety and anger, fear
and rage, our lives would be incomplete” [20] pp.8.
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to those who gave up their time to participate in our study
along with all the MRes students in the 2007-2008 cohort who
contributed to this study.
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