Process reflections
It has been a difficult task to do research and write weekly blog posts. I have previously been more used to a scientific paper based approach to research, where you take your time to lay out a plan first before worrying about producing an output. As I am used to this process taking time, I now felt more rushed to figure out the direction of where I am going, how I would do it etc. each week. This often left me feeling paralyzed, procrastinating, leaving the work to the last minute. I found myself not producing anything helpful, neither for me or others reading the blog posts later.
Coming from a university with less modules and lectures to focus on also made this shift difficult in balancing and managing the workload of the different modules. This in turn affected the blog post, which often fell at the back of my head. With this in mind I take with me the importance of laying out a temporary plan for what research methods one thinks would be fitting for the topic and focusing on one thing at the time. Swapping topics also led me to having to start all over and it was limited what I was able to do with the short amount of time with each, although I could definitely have dug a little deeper.
I believe I could have done research using more varied methods than simply looking at previous research, surveys, analysing and some of my own thoughts and experiences. For example some interviews, user testing, maybe try to create some user journeys to see where changes could’ve been made.
Recap
To summarize what the previous blog posts consisted of, we know that EBSN connects people through activities rather than direct matchmaking. This we can see in Meetup, an EBSN that prioritizes events and groups over individual connections and has limited personalization of your profile. With the previously mentioned loneliness epidemic I see EBSN or matchmaking applications being a potential helper in battling this epidemic. However, it feels as if the matchmaking applications are often not encouraging real meetups, but just there to offer another game to play. While the EBSN has a more community and event focus, rather than individual connections. I believe one needs to work on bridging the gap between the offline and online world, and by lowering the stress and tempo of the individual connection to let people connect on a deeper level.
