LOOP

Building a platform that challenges political misinformation

Timeline April 2024

Role UX Researcher

Background

As part of a design challenge at The Collective Studio, I worked with a team to create a platform to combat political misinformation. Our goal was to design a feature that helps users spot false information, promotes critical thinking, and encourages informed political discussions.

Goal

Create an app that lets users fact-check political content in real time, helping them make better decisions and reduce the spread of misinformation. The app needed to solve problems like weak fact-checking tools, low trust in online information, and information overload.

Challenge

With political misinformation spreading quickly on social media, it’s getting harder for people to tell what’s true and what’s not. Our challenge was to design a solution that helps users fact-check and navigate misinformation, while still respecting free speech.

My Impact

I led the research for this project, conducting user interviews, analyzing surveys, and performing a competitive analysis. Once I gathered and synthesized the data, I handed off my findings to the design team to build the final solution.

Research

Goals

Through research, I wanted to understand:

  • How people consume political information.

  • What makes users share or believe political content.

  • The tools and methods they use to verify information.

Methodologies

  • Competitive research: I analyzed top fact-checking platforms to find gaps in the market.

  • User interviews: I conducted in-depth interviews with politically active users and casual news consumers to understand their habits and challenges with misinformation.

Competitive Research

I compared key features of popular fact-checking platforms like Snopes, FactCheck.org, and NewsGuard. While they offer detailed fact-checks, they don’t have real-time features or interactive tools that engage users while they’re consuming information. None of them include community-driven fact-checking or tools to help users research political news before making decisions.

User Interview

“I see fake news on Facebook and Twitter all the time. It’s hard to know what to believe anymore.”
“Misinformation spreads so fast in my social media circles, and it feels like there’s no easy way to stop it.”
“I usually end up checking multiple sources to see if something’s true, but it’s a hassle and I don’t always have the patience for it.”
“I wish there was a quick, built-in way to fact-check posts while I’m scrolling. I don’t have time to verify everything.”

Research Synopsis
I interviewed users who regularly consume political news online. They told me misinformation is everywhere on social media, and most rely on platforms like Twitter and Facebook without double-checking facts. Many were frustrated by the lack of easy fact-checking tools, which sometimes caused them to share misinformation without realizing it..

Key Insights

  • Users want fact-checking tools built right into the platforms they already use.

    Spontaneous, unchecked content really affects how much people trust political information.

    A lot of users skip checking facts with external sources, so it’s important to have fact-checking features embedded in the platform itself.

Ideation & Define

Brainwriting Session

Our team held a brainwriting session to come up with ideas to tackle political misinformation. We explored several concepts, including:

  • A browser extension that flags content and sources.

  • Notifications and alerts for fact-checked news.

  • Community-driven fact-checks for increased transparency.

Hypothesis

We believe uninformed political users will want a digital platform of trusted sources when encountering fake news on social media, so they can feel confident in the accuracy of the political content they consume.

User Persona

From my research, I created a persona for politically engaged users who have a hard time telling fact from fiction. It shows their need for quick, reliable fact-checking tools and their frustration with all the false information they encounter.

Affinity Mapping

After interviewing users and running surveys, I used affinity mapping to sort out common frustrations, needs, and behaviors. This helped me build the user persona and pinpoint the main problem: people feel overwhelmed by misinformation and need quick, reliable tools to make better decisions.

Intuitive Fact-Checking

Personalization and Context

Community Features

Education and Transparency

Multilingual and Culturally Sensitive Design

Prototype

The high-fidelity prototype was built using the insights from my research. After I handed off my findings, the design team took over and created the final design. It includes the key features we identified, like real-time fact-checking and credibility indicators, all designed to be simple and easy to use.

Conclusion

While working on this project, I learned to trust the research process. At first, I assumed the main issue was misinformation itself, but the research showed me it was more about how people consume and trust political content. This insight shifted my focus to creating a real-time fact-checking tool that fits into the way users already consume information.

I ran user interviews, analyzed surveys, and did a competitive analysis before handing off my research to the design team. They built the high-fidelity prototype based on the data I gathered. As we go through more iterations and testing, the platform will become more user-friendly and better at tackling misinformation.

This project taught me how important it is to stay flexible and let the research guide the design. By focusing on what users really need, we're not just solving a current problem, but we're setting up the product for long-term success.