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Friends

Understanding Teen Friendship Growth 

Context

A social media company wanted to understand how friendship develops over time among Teens to understand the role of social media in its dynamic growth. 

Challenge Statement

How might we better support Teens on platform as their friendship goals evolve over time? 

Approach

  • Designed a mixed-methods longitudinal study plan in partnership with Quant UXR to deeply understand how teen friendships start, grow, and are maintained over a period of a given academic year, particularly in the context of social media and virtual social representation. 

  • We also focused on how a particular social media platform fit within a larger social media landscape from an interaction perspective - especially given the dynamic nature of competing apps that serve similar interests. 

  •  Built a research plan that included Qualitative monthly diary studies, periodic in-depth interviews, and Quantitative multi-wave surveys throughout an academic year. 

  • 60 high-school-aged participants were recruited on Dscout who completed the monthly diary study and a 60-minute in-depth interview over a period of time (at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year). 

  • The Longitudinal nature of the study called for research insights to be delivered on a rolling basis. 

  • Thoroughly analyzed and cleaned up massive amounts of data from diary studies and user interviews to create consumable bite-sized readouts of key insights, levers that impact friendship change, and competitor apps in Teens' everyday social lives and friendships. 

Impact

  • Learnings from this study are scoped beyond product development. They helped the teams understand the core user demographic in a specific and deep context. 

  • Presented reoccurring themes and explored participants' social lives in and out of school, various times of the year, how they perceived closeness and use of various social media platforms, their value propositions, limitations, and friendship evolution in both online vs. in-person contexts. 

  • Provided in-depth insights, JTBD, early signals, competitor advantages, and future product recommendations that helped multiple product areas working on features that help people interact with friends, follow interests, and share content on the platform. 

Methodology 

  • Mixed-Methods Longitudinal Study

  • Multi-wave Survey, In-depth User Interviews, Diary Studies, Affinity diagramming, Thematic analysis, Contextual Inquiry

  • Deliverables: Research plan, 3 interview guides, 1-pager analysis infographic, bite-sized readout decks, Analysis deck, and a detailed report with user quotes and relevant sources for related projects and past research. 

  • Timeline: 10 months 

Let’s Work Together

If you like what you see and want to chat more, reach out! Write to me at uxrpooja@gmail.com 

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