DOCUMENTATION OF PROGRESS PDF: THALIA_WEEK2_PROGRESS
For this week,
- I created prototypes for a candy box and a candy bag with the nutrition facts label on it. I created a candy bag because I believe it would be cheaper to produce.
- I tested three different metric systems: the revenues of social media companies, the minimum wage in France, and an average of the revenues. For all three metric systems, I used the Haribo croco candies as a reference, each piece costing approximately 3.6 cents at Monoprix. I experimented with the average user’s usage, my own usage, my mom’s and a friend’s.
- I prototyped a self help guide for moderate social media use people can pick up from the candy shop. The tips and tricks are directly taken from my ARS paper. These include a psychological trick, some changes in the settings of our phones and social media apps, and a recommendation of apps.
- Developed the conversion platform I was talking about last week. Some improvements in the design are still needed.
Metric 1: Revenues of social media companies
In order to calculate the revenue of social media companies, I looked for the average revenue each company makes per user per year. Then, I looked for how many minutes on average we spend per year on the platform, and I divided the revenue over the time.
As I was testing the metric system, I noticed that keeping the price per candy the same it is at Monoprix generates too little candies. For Facebook for example, one minute of our time generates the little amount of 0.03 candies. In an attempt at increasing the number of candies, I tested a version with the price per piece reduced to 1 cent. This generated 0.11 pieces per minute instead.
Conversion platform:
The conversion platform specific to these metrics requires the user to enter his usage of the following apps: Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat, and Twitter.
Platform link: https://codepen.io/thaliakassem/pen/zYKVpWJ
Metric 2: Minimum wage in France
When experimenting with this metric system, I kept the price per candy the same it is in the supermarket. As a result, 1 minute of our time on social media generates 4 pieces of candy approximately.
The good thing about using the minimum wage as a metric is that I can get a big accumulation of candies and show the unhealthiness of consumption more easily. However, production wise, if people on average would get 522 candies, that hypothetically means I will have to pay 19€ worth of candy for each visitor of the exhibition.
Conversion platform:
Instead of being asked to enter his usage time of the different social media apps on the platform, the user has to enter his overall social media time and would get the candy equivalent in minimum wage.
Platform link: https://codepen.io/thaliakassem/pen/ExgBodG
Metric 3: Average of revenues
This metric is not as precise as the previous ones, because it doesn’t cover social media in general, and is only specific to the following 5 platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat, and Twitter. When experimenting with this metric system, I kept the price per candy the same it is in the supermarket. As a result, 1 minute of our time on social media generates 0.1 pieces of candy approximately.
Conversion platform:
Instead of being asked to enter his usage time of the different social media apps on the platform, the user has to enter his overall social media time and would get the candy equivalent in minimum wage.
Platform link: https://codepen.io/thaliakassem/pen/GRjbpab
Nutrition Facts Label:
I included a serving size of 30 minutes because that’s the recommended healthy screen time. I also added the side effects users get from social media on a physical and psychological level. I kept the calories values the same they are on the haribo croco label.
In case I stick to the revenue of social media companies as a metric, I made each color of candy correspond to one social media platform and its time equivalent.
Thoughts:
Which version should I choose and what can I improve?
Won’t my project be too expensive to produce ?
At what time is the exhibition happening ? I’m afraid the morning people won’t get enough candies because they didn’t have time to use their social media.
What if the person has to pay less than 10 cents for their consumption. Let’s say 1 cent or something more complicated like 4 cents. Not everyone has cents coins they would certainly pay with bigger coins. How would we give them a change ? A solution would be to exchange euros to cents at the bank but how will we know how much we should get?
Also let’s take the example of my friend who got 88 candies instead of 25 for 88 cents when the price per candy is set to 1 cent. Won’t she find the price cheap for such an amount of candies ? Or it doesn’t matter ?
