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Confidential UI Design Rev PA1 5/5/2009 1 Mobile SNS User Study User Experience Lab Beijing, 05.09

Chinese local Mobile SNS User Study

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an onsite interview of Chinese local social networking services users, including Kaixin001, xiaonei (now it's renamed to renren), insights from interview included.

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Page 1: Chinese local Mobile SNS  User Study

Confidential

UIDesign

Rev PA1 5/5/2009 1

Mobile SNS User StudyUser Experience Lab Beijing, 05.09

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Confidential

Rev PA1 5/5/2009 2

Method

• 7 In-depth interviews (on-site or invite to UX lab)

• User recruit criteria: mobile SNS user or PC SNS user (mixed Kaixin and Xiaonei users, mixed gender, mixed working people and students)

• Interview procedure• Understand education, occupation, typical day, hobbies etc.• Talk about general PC internet usage: blog, internet shopping, IM, SNS, video

sharing etc.• Talk about PC SNS usage: what? How? Where? Focus on communication • Talk about general mobile phone usage: download 3rd party applications,

browsing, mobile IM etc.• Talk about mobile SNS usage: what? How? Where? Focus on communication and

difference with other IM and SMS etc. • Try out the Kaixin and Xiaonei mobile client

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Highlight Findings

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Communication Model

• SNS adds a new communication platform to people, they have significant differences with IM and SMS. SNS used for non-instant communication, and most of SNS friends are acquaintances from work place and school campus.

• IM used for real-time chatting, which gave a more connected feeling.

• SMS friends and Fetion friends are highly overlapped, both used for instant communication between close friends.

IM:

QQ , MSN

Mobile MSN

Mobile QQ

Instant Communication

Daily check

Close Relationship

Acquaintances

Strangers

SNS :Kaixin, Xiaonai etc

SMS,

Fetion

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What people do with SNS

• Different SNS has different target groups. Kaixin targets on working people, and Xiaonei targets on school students.

• Kaixin is a very much game-centric communication platform.• Indirect game-based communication, e.g. garden, parking etc.

• Gaming attracts Kaixin users to go to Kaixin several times a day. If there’s no more attractive game, they would go to Kaixin less frequently.

• Indirect text based communication, e.g. voting, truth telling etc.

• Less direct, instant communication with Kaixin friends.• IM was much more preferred• If the friend was not the IM list, they will add them to their IM list if instant

communication was needed.

• Xiaonei users are not so keen on the games, they have more blogging, sharing behavior.• Web games required several checks on the website for a good achievement,

which was inconvenient for most students.

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Survey on Kaixin showed the importance of Gaming

• Question: Will you still plant a garden this time next year?• 80% said they wouldn’t.

• This survey suggested people would not keep playing a same game for long time (e.g. 1 year), although gaming is very appealing to the majority of Kaixin users.

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Mobile SNS

• Behaviors• They used mobile SNS for some quick and small tasks, e.g. parking, checking

messages.• When the home PC is off, and they are not willing to turn on the desktop just for

these small and quick tasks on social networks.• When the boss is front of you• People checks several times a day on Kaixin for games, not for friends updates.

• If there’re no more attractive games, they would go to Kaixin less frequently (e.g. 3 or 4 times a week)

• Killing time (when PC not available)• On the commuting• In the class (when the course is boring)• On bed, before sleeping (particularly for students living in the campus)

• How do they launch SNS in their mobile phone?• Most of them used browser’s address history• A few used bookmarks (e.g. bookmark wap.kaixin001.com)

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What people need on Kaixin Mobile Client• Mobile client is not used for instant messaging.

• Contacts are not the center of communication• Instant friends status update is not so appealing

• Gaming supported on the mobile client would be very appealing to Kaixin users.• Games seemed a must on the mobile client• Gaming (parking, gardening etc), and voting, truth telling etc are the center of

communication.

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Kaixin’s Mobile Client v1.0: Pros & Cons

• Pros:• Kaixin main application looks good in color.• Contents showed in the client (all the status update) more readable compared

with Wap Kaixin.

• Cons:• Kaixin main application: a lot of contents need to launch the browser to go to wap

Kaixin, which made users feel it just like a shortcut to Wap Kaixin. They felt very disappointed about it.

• The most popular games were not available in the mobile client, which also made users disappointed. They thought at least the Kaixin client should have all the functions on Wap Kaixin.

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Kaixin on Idle Screen: Pros & Cons

• Pros:• Kaixin on idle screen looks appealing

• Cons:• Always scrolling on the idle screen is annoying.• Concerns about always running in the phone:

• Power/battery consuming?

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Design Recommendations

• How to make Kaixin client more appealing and useful?• Current popular games supported, aligned with web Kaixin, which could be less

appearance attractive but quick and

• Integrated contacts book

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User Profile

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Differences among QQ, MSN & Fetion

• Integrated phonebook is most meaningful for Fetion, probablly QQ and MSN etc, not for Kaixin.

• Kaixin is not for instant communication or not for contact-centric communication, which is a game-centric communication (specific for Kaixin)• To know all the interactions among friends around a particular topic (e.g. voting,

comment, truth telling, garden etc) is more attractive than instant communication.

• Mobile Kaixin is