Reducing Anonymous Harassment
Looking to design mechanisms to detect and remove inappropriate behavior within 7 Cups chats, and create mechanisms for responding to these behaviors as they occur.
Company
7 Cups
Date
2021
Role
Product Designer
Deliverables
Final Solutions
Other
Project Overview
Context:
7 Cups is an anonymous online mental health community.
Members are paired with Listeners trained in active listening. Listeners provide emotional support to members through one-on-one chats.
Goals:
Our project goals include helping listeners and members feel empowered to handle situations of abusive behavior on 7 Cups.
My Role:
Product Designer
Problem Statement
Problem:
Every so often, listeners receive inappropriate messages on 7 Cups including trolling, flirtatious behavior, or inappropriate language.
They experience harm on 7 Cups from these abusive members.
Oftentimes, listeners do not know the right way to handle these situations. When they file a report, they receive no follow-up and feel frustrated.
Why Important:
7Cups has a very wide audience and user base. The platform is currently being used in 189 countries with 140 different language support.
Up until this point, it has been reported that about 1.3 million messages have been sent, 430 thousand trained listeners are available and 54 million users have used 7cups.
Design Process
Research:
Our research goals include:
The General 7 Cups Experience
Inappropriate Behavior and Abuse on 7 Cups
Motivation for Inappropriate Behavior
Users’ Perception and Response to Inappropriate Behavior
To achieve these goals, I used 4 research methods:
User + Expert Interviews: Due to the constraint of not being able to directly engage with 7 Cups users, we incorporated a follow-up interview question in a public survey. From the responses, we selected four individuals and conducted one-on-one, 30-minute Zoom discussions. Our focus was on understanding their experiences with harassment and abuse on online anonymous platforms, including their perception of what consists of abusive behavior, its past impacts, response strategies, and views on existing platform responses. Participants received a $15 Amazon gift card as compensation.
Additionally, we reached out to trusted moderators on 7 Cups to conduct interviews. We're exploring their protocol for addressing inappropriate behavior, its impact on the community, their perception of the issue's scope, past mitigation efforts, and any other insights from an internal 7 Cups perspective.
Affinity Diagramming: Utilizing insights from user interviews and short-answer survey responses, we crafted an affinity diagram to distill crucial insights and themes.
We categorized our green statements and systematically discussed and reorganized each grouping. Noteworthy themes emerged, particularly regarding accountability and anonymity within online platforms. Additionally, we addressed fundamental questions regarding perceptions of abusive behavior.
Regarding general user behaviors, a prevalent pattern emerged: many adopt an avoidant approach when faced with inappropriate behavior. Users frequently encounter a lack of feedback within the reporting process, leading to a sense of diminished control.
After Affinity Diagraming, I found 4 main insights.
Ideation:
After we synthesized our findings, we used the Crazy 8’s exercise to ideate 40 possible solutions.
From our 40 ideas, we voted on 8 main concepts.
To test the feasibility of our ideas with 7 Cups users, we developed 12 storyboards for each of our concepts.
We conducted 10 speed dating sessions with the 7 Cups community to gain feedback on our ideas. Our interviewees were a mix of members, listeners, and moderators.
We found 4 main insights from our speed dating sessions.
Based on our storyboarding + speed dating, we narrowed down our ideas.
Prototyping + Testing:
Mid-Fi Prototyping: We reframed these ideas into a “package” and organized them within a 7 Cups chat timeline.
From this “package,” we created 3 prototypes:
We conducted a total of 10 speed dating sessions across mid and hi fi prototyping with the 7 Cups community to gain feedback on our ideas. Our interviewees were a mix of members, listeners, and moderators.
Hi-Fi Protyping: We implemented the community education portion of our solution to incorporate different types of questions and provide a more interactive educational experience. We also prototyped the Listener Reporting Flow.
Solution
Solution:
In conclusion, our solution focuses on educating and empowering 7 Cups members and listeners to handle inappropriate situations to keep the community a safer place.
We use a realistic scenario-based training module to help members and listeners practice handling abusive situations.
We provide tools such as flagging, access to guidelines, and the ability to follow the report process to give users control and guidance from 7 Cups.
Solution Demo:
We’ve created a two-step solution to help the 7 Cups community in keeping the platform safe.
Results
Conclusions:
Through our solution and design changes, 7 Cups can remain a safe space for all members and listeners to support each other.
User-Driven Prototyping: After implementing the last round of user testing feedback, we observed a generally positive sentiment toward both our education and reporting flow prototypes. Our prototypes evolved significantly throughout the process, optimizing them based on valuable input and ideas from 7Cups users.
Next Steps:
Enhancing User Safety and Support: The education module, designed for authentic 7 Cups users, offers flexibility for expansion to address varying scenarios and provide tailored guidance.
Furthermore, the implementation of the reporting flow spec empowers users with increased control when reporting others, facilitating real-time updates on ticket status. This integration aims to create a safer platform, aligning with 7 Cups' core mission of providing online therapy and free support to individuals in emotional distress, connecting them with trained listeners.