Queering Twitter: A UX Thesis
Exploring design principles for LGBTQ+ individuals within speech & harassment specifically on Twitter.
Understanding the Project
Upon my inquiries between the relations of queerness and design principles, I have found that social media platforms are largely still not effective enough in providing safe spaces for individuals on the queer spectrum. I decided to focus my research in looking at ways users exchange words and language with each other on Twitter and how language algorithms can be better utilized to keep Twitter users safe.
Goals & Role Responsibilities
For my undergraduate UX thesis, I took it up upon myself to examine how to personally be a better LGBTQ+ advocate and look at ways UX practices can be implemented to better support and uplift those that identify as queer
and person of color.
This was a student project with one designer taking the initiative to establish objectives, OKRs timetables, & research.
Designs at a Glance
Mute Multiple Words Simultaneously
Rather simply muting one word per entry, users would be able to mute a wide variety of related suggestions– ranging from similar words, phrases, & emoji's. With this word cloud of suggestions, this will mitigate any user frustrations with having to enter multiple words that mean the same thing, ex: "cats", "cat", etc.
Granular Controls On User Feed
Allowing users to dictate how much of a muted word gets filtered through their Twitter feed acts like another safe guard for how much information the user personally deems safe to enter their bubble.
Great Organization For Quicker Searches
The new main Muted Words page is defined either alphabetically or by how much a muted word gets
removed from the user's feed. This effectively allows the user to see how much a word gets muted from their feed.
