The Idea
There is no doubt that networking today is an absolutely essential part of our lives today, whether it is to build our careers or improve our social lives. But not all of us have the best skills required to move from person to person in a room and start any conversation and make impressive moves, cool enough to land on anyone's acquaintance radar. On top of that, it seems as if printing out card stock with your social credentials and contact details for every networking event is a huge waste of money. In addition, it is also an unnecessary drain on the environment. What is the guarantee that the person we shared our ideas and a card with took the time to view or check our card after the event?
The Problem
All these methods, despite their potential, do not have 100% networking capability. This is why a new and more evolved way of networking that is quicker, easier and sustainable is required. This brings us to our potential interaction design idea, the opportunities for social networking through facial recognition.
Face Scan.
Facial recognition is an ai technology that primarily enables you to detect and differentiate between the unique individual’s features from an image or video captured. Faces have long been argued to be “special” as a category of visual stimulus, showing both cortical specificity and a wide range of face-specific perceptual effects. (Reference: Shakeshaft, Nicholas G., and Robert Plomin. “Genetic Specificity of Face Recognition.”)
Using facial recognition through a camera app to directly find all the networking information of an individual not only cuts a long line of search in different sets of desired apps, but also makes it easier to not end up with a different person with identical name and attributes.
The Steps Of Face Scanning App
Action: Using facial recognition through a camera app to directly find all the networking information of an individual not only cuts a long line of search in different sets of desired apps but also makes it easier to avoid getting a person who has the same name and attributes as the one we were searching for.
Task Scenarios
User Persona Development
As part of the primary research, four participants were recruited to be part of the interview process in order to gather data for the study. As a result, questions were carefully designed in order to make sure that relevant information was collected from the participants. Data collection was conducted in a structured way to ensure that all participants answered the same questions, and some of the questions are given below:
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What is the importance of networking in their life?
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Is it difficult for them to make small talks or ice-breakers during meetups?
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Do they usually connect with one person on multiple platforms?
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What difficulties would you face if you had to use a facial recognition app?
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How would having somebody's all social media profiles in one go help you?
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Do you think networking through a facial recognition app would be helpful?
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Would you consider the FaceScan app to be safe for users in regard to its privacy protection and the fact that it only provides information that is already available on the internet?
Based on the data collected from the user, two personas were created to provide a comprehensive understanding of the user and their needs.
Task scenario 2
The second task outlines how a social media analyst Kathy would use the FaceScan app on a design event and pitch her ideas to get more freelance clients to different design firms. This activity revealed that there will need to be a prominent way to connect with different design or media firms in multiple places. This could potentially be its own tab within the wireframes.
Situation:
Walking into a networking event, unprepared about the topics and clueless about the invitees, without n to 0 numbers of business cards.
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Kathy is a newbie in the Design field but she wants to work as a social media analyst in a design firm and also learn bits of designing herself, she is also an introvert and is attending her very first design event in London with her friend Ken who has already worked in the field and knows a few speakers in the event.
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During breaks, Kathy often finds herself as an outcast but tries to involve herself in every group discussion over drinks. At the end of each small talk, she introduces herself and asks if she can connect to them through social media, while some are active only on LinkedIn some say they regularly produce useful content on UX on Instagram or Facebook. Kathy opens her face scanner and takes pictures with each of them.
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Once scanned, the app immediately shows all their social media handles that include LinkedIn, Behance, Dribble, Google, Instagram and Facebook.
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Kathy connects to them wherever they mention they are most active. Meanwhile, Ken shares the business card that he printed spending around 50 pounds.
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Kathy scans the faces of people she could not talk to in person and adds them on LinkedIn with messages and personal notes. After the event, she makes a total of 24 contacts from her field and comes across much useful content based on UX. She is also glad to make connections with people that are working in a company she looks forward to sharing her ideas and sharing her pitch with them soon.
Task scenario 1
The following table describes the context associated with key activities facilitated in Face Scan. The task scenarios are described on the following pages. They include installing the application, using the application by scanning through the front or back camera in a phone, browsing through the social media accounts and following the ones interested.
User Group: College/ University Students
Scenario 1: Connecting with freshers and other students at a fresher's event
Practical Goal: Connecting with more people quicker and more places at a single time. Intermediate goals will include browsing the community, creating a project, and inviting other users to participate. Context:
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Physical environment: At a social gathering, in college, a party or any type of social gathering.
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Frequency of task: Frequency depends on need. Some may use it regularly while some only during social conventions.
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Time constraints: There are no exact time constraints.
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Concurrency with different tasks: The application allows students to operate it any time of the day while doing several other daily activities.
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Concurrency with different versions of the same task: Students using this app should be able to, open the camera scanner, scan faces, browse through different social media accounts, open the accounts and edit their own profile information. Though they will not be able to perform these tasks at the same time.
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Prioritisation and scheduling: Students would have to set up their accounts and update their social media information before they can start using the app.
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Resource conflicts: The smartphone the student is using to access the application will also be used for calls, messaging, emails, and other activities that can simultaneously be open in the background of the app.
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Individual or group activity: The main goal of the app is to interact in any social setting and can involve multiple people at the same time which means it is an individual and group activity.
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Known problems or error situations: This app provides information that people need to look up manually, allowing the user to follow anyone who is completely in the hands of account owners. If a stranger X has been scanned without permission, X has the right to report or remove them from their personal account.
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Criticality: Legal consequences may exist in sharing the information students are required to input upon setting up their accounts.
User Conceptual Modelling
Stage
This conceptual model shows the activities involved in finding people on a variety of social media platforms using Face Scan. It includes similar steps as the task model such as scanning faces or scanning images from phone image galleries, browsing different platforms, and following the selection. This list revealed that the primary tasks involved in this app may be detecting faces, and browsing through people's profiles in a variety of social apps created by different users.
OVERVIEW
Initial Profile Setup to Find people across different applications and widen reach and opportunities. .
Conclusion
Face Scan is an ideal concept for the future of Facial Recognition still in its rudimentary stages. Through this course, I gained invaluable insight into the standard interaction process and the importance of considering the user's needs and preferences throughout the design process. Using user profiles, personas, and task scenarios helped us gain a deeper understanding of the users' requirements. Testing with users for the app helped me to gain a better understanding of how they interact with and experience the product, identify the areas that require improvement, and uncover valuable insights that would be hard to detect otherwise. Furthermore, I will be focusing on conducting more user testing and gathering even more feedback in order to further improve the future of