It would be important to emphasize that FB has definite advantages over their current methods of communicating such as email, snail mail, and phone calls, with almost the same ROI (return on investment). Perhaps even more so. It would be important to delineate the most obvious functions of the FB platform, such as wall posts, inbox messages, and event invitations and reservations. Keeping the tutorial or guidebook simple and direct is of upmost importance. Email clients such as Gmail, AOL, or Yahoo would be the users' technological frame, from which we could build the guidebook. All three of these email services, and most other email clients, have this functionality. The return on investment for learning a new service are the added features.
These features should not be presented in a technological sense , so as to not baffle the user before it is necessary (and it shouldn't be baffling, ever). The additional features should be presented in the form of social connections and filtering of social connections. This would be a basis on which to be grounded, because the users' email communications are based upon the same real life social connections, but without the beneficial filtering abilities.
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Although you describe the features of Facebook very well, that may not be the only thing you need to familiarize users with the software enough for them to actually use it. As we learned from Orlikowski, older users, actually any user, will think of Facebook in terms of their existing frameworks. They will not be able to apply the new features of Facebook to a part of their lives unless you tell them how, possibly with an example or analogy. In addition, you do not identify what incentive or reward system you will use. It is helpful to describe the direct benefits of the software to potential users.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the biggest challenge is not making them aware of Facebook's features, but rather presenting reasons why they should care about the extra features. Most older computer users are almost definitely aware of Facebook, and even probably know the added functionality pretty well. They need to be convinced that their returns on usage will be worth the initial cost of investment. I can think of many instances where I wanted to upgrade, but basically put it off to avoid the initial hassle. Facebook, though very easy and efficient itself, still presents difficulties when trying to completely merge the technology with your life, as we have been tasked to do.
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