Why Google+ Circles is Failing

USABILITY RESEARCH REPORT:
UNDERSTANDING PRIVATE GROUP
COMMUNICATION ON GOOGLE+

ANG | ANGELL | GRAY | ID - 598-12 | USABILITY METHODS, FALL 2011

Q:
HOW IS IT THAT CIRCLES, ARGUABLY THE
MOST LAUDED FEATURE OF GOOGLE+,
GOES SO VASTLY UNDERUTILIZED?


AGENDA

STUDY OVERVIEW

KEY FINDINGS

RECOMMENDATIONS


BACKGROUND
Google+ is a new social media platform that was
launched on June 28, 2011. Google+ drew a frenzy of
media attention at the time of its launch, with many
early adopters deeming it a viable challenger
to Facebook.

However, after the initial surge of new accounts were
created on Google+, the volume of activity has fallen
oﬀ sharply and is behind initial expectations.

Our goal is to understand how we can optimize a
competitively diﬀerentiating feature of Google+:
enhanced control over group sharing and messaging.


OBJECTIVES
The speciﬁc objectives of this usability study are
as follows:

‣ Identify and diagnose usability issues that
interfere with users’ ability to communicate
privately with other Google+ users via Google+
Circles.
‣ Evaluate whether Google+ Circles is fulﬁlling
user expectations and delivering on it’s stated
promise, “Share just the right things with just the
right people.”


METHODOLOGY
We conducted a total of six diagnostic usability interviews with Google+ users
who have limited experience with the platform.

‣ Each session was approximately twenty minutes in duration and included a
short participant introduction to the project, warm-up discussion, diagnostic
task-based usability evaluation, and a closing discussion.
‣ Each of the six sessions were comprised of one participant, one facilitator, and
two observers who recorded notes and operated video equipment.


PARTICIPANT PROFILES
‣ Participants were required to be Facebook users who had recently signed up for Google+
‣ All participants currently use Gmail and are familiar with Google’s oﬀerings

Marie: Avid Facebook user. Uses it to socialize Shannon: Moderate Facebook user. Uses it to Matt: Avid user of several social media
and coordinate group events. keep tabs on friends and family near and far. platforms including Facebook and YouTube.

Mike: Occasional Facebook user. Likes Amy: Moderate Facebook user. Likes sharing Lisa: Frequent Facebook user and early
reading content his friends share. photos and social experiences with friends. adopter of Google+.


DIAGNOSTIC TASK
In order to observe users privately communicating to a small group on Google+,
we asked them to complete the following sequence of tasks:

‣ Find three Google+ users whose names and Gmail addresses were provided
‣ Create a customized Google+ Circle
‣ Add these three Google+ users to the newly created customized Circle
‣ Post a private message to this Circle

They did so by performing the following scenario:

‣ Imagine you and three friends are planning a surprise party for your mutual
friend Sara. The party is in two weeks. To keep Sara (who is also on Google+)
from ﬁnding out, you need to develop your plans privately and have decided to
use Google Plus to do this.


OVERALL, GOOGLE+ DID NOT DELIVER
ON USER EXPECTATIONS FOR PRIVATE GROUP
COMMUNICATION DUE TO THE
FOLLOWING OVERARCHING ISSUES:
‣ Users approach Google+ with a set of expectations ﬁrmly based on prior experience
with Facebook, yet Google+ fails to align with these expectations.
‣ Google+ employs a series of common metaphors that clash with user expectations as to
how the interface should behave.


WE IDENTIFIED FOUR KEY BARRIERS . . .


BARRIER 1:
FINDING AND ADDING NEW FRIENDS IS AN UNCLEAR PROCESS

BARRIER 2:
USERS’ EXPECTED SEQUENCE OF ACTIONS ARE NOT SUPPORTED

BARRIER 3:
GOOGLE+ FAILS TO PROVIDE CLOSURE AT KEY POINTS

BARRIER 4:
KEY METAPHORS OF THE GOOGLE+ EXPERIENCE ARE MISUNDERSTOOD


BARRIER 1

HOW DO YOU FIND SOMEONE?


BARRIER 1

USERS ARE UNCLEAR AS TO WHICH OF SEVERAL
FUNCTIONS THEY SHOULD USE TO FIND FRIENDS
‣ The Search Google+ box does not indicate
what types of search it should be used for,
nor does it facilitate member searches by
Gmail address.
‣ While Send invitations is intended for
existing members to invite new friends to
join Google+, users confused it for a method
of ﬁnding and adding friends.
‣ While Find Friend didactics appeared in new
user streams, these were not present for
participants who had been using the site for
several weeks.


BARRIER 1

FURTHER, USERS HAVE NO MEANS OF
CONDUCTING AN ADVANCED SEARCH
‣ Users are forced to sort through lists of
suggested friends and potential matches to
their searches, with no options to reﬁne their
search criteria with additional types of data
(e.g. city of residence, school, workplace, etc.)


BARRIER 1


BARRIER 1

ONCE A FRIEND IS FOUND, USERS ASSUME THEIR
FRIEND REQUEST MUST BE ACCEPTED

‣ Based on their previous experience with
Facebook, users assumed they couldn’t
privately message new friends until their friend
request was accepted.
‣ Clicking on a newly added friend’s proﬁle page
reinforced this assumption by stating, “[user
name] hasn’t shared anything with you.”


BARRIER 1

“How do friends accept me?
Are we all put into the same circle?

~Mike


BARRIER 2

USERS EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO PRIVATELY SEND
MESSAGES TO CIRCLES VIA THE CIRCLES PAGE
Path expected by users:

Send a private message
to members of a Circle
from Circles Page
(currently missing).

Actual path:


BARRIER 2


BARRIER 2

USERS WENT AS FAR AS IMPROVISING TO MAKE
THIS FLOW MATCH THEIR EXPECTATIONS.

HERE IS ONE SUCH EXAMPLE . . .


BARRIER 2

Using the Circle description box as a message ﬁeld:


BARRIER 3

“I don’t know if I’m sharing to everyone or just
the group created.

~Amy


BARRIER 3

LACK OF ADEQUATE FEEDBACK MADE USERS
UNCLEAR AND ANXIOUS ABOUT PRIVATE SHARING

Users often failed to notice that posts are
tagged with descriptors indicating “Public” or
“Limited” sharing, leaving them to wonder
whether their post is viewable by the
intended recipients.

“Limited” is used broadly for any post that is
directed toward a circle, leaving it up to the
user to interpret which circle the message
was posted to or intended for.


BARRIER 4

THE STREAM METAPHOR CONTRADICTS
THE CIRCLES METAPHOR
Streams imply public sharing.
Circles imply private sharing.


BARRIER 4

GOOGLE+ COMPOUNDS THIS PROBLEM BY
REVERSING THE CONVENTIONS OF
PRIVATE MESSAGING:

Facebook Messaging Google+ Stream Post

Follows Convention: Reverses Convention:
Recipient(s) ﬁrst. Message second. Message ﬁrst. Recipient(s) second.


BARRIER 4

MOREOVER, THERE IS AN INTUITIVE DISCONNECT
BETWEEN THE USE OF CIRCLES AS A LABEL FOR
RELATIONSHIP STATUS VS. ITS USE AS A PRIVATE
MESSAGING CHANNEL . . .


BARRIER 4

When users ﬁrst add people to their network in Google+, they are prompted to
drop them into a circle, of which three examples are provided – friends, family and
acquaintances.

These starter circles are labeled in terms of the essential relationships that we all
have. They appear to be mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive –this
makes it straightforward to classify people into one of three buckets.


BARRIER 4

Using circles as a way to limit messages to groups of people thus requires a
cognitive leap that is not entirely intuitive.

In Facebook, friends can join groups or events, implying that if a friend, for
example, joins a particular interest group, his status as a friend does not change.

In other words, private messaging is a function of context more than
relationship status.


BARRIER 4

On Google+ there is no hierarchy between the
circles – all of them exist on the same level.

What happens when you move someone out of
friends into another circle?

Are you creating a new stream of
communications with him, or does his
relationship status change as well?

It is not evident that people can exist in multiple
circles at a time. Some participants’ ﬁrst
instincts were to ﬁnd a function that would
allow them to message a subset of their friends.


BARRIERS RECOMMENDATIONS

BARRIER 1: Add advanced search functionality and create a
uniﬁed place to search, invite, and add friends.
FINDING AND ADDING NEW FRIENDS IS AN
Make it clear that users don’t have to wait for a
UNCLEAR PROCESS friend to accept their request before they can
begin communicating with them.
BARRIER 2:
USERS’ EXPECTED SEQUENCE OF ACTIONS Build clear bridges between the functions of
ARE NOT SUPPORTED creating Circles and messaging to them.

BARRIER 3: Provide more feedback regarding public versus
GOOGLE+ FAILS TO PROVIDE CLOSURE AT private messaging to assuage users’ anxiety
KEY POINTS concerning “mis-sharing.”

BARRIER 4: Make the metaphors explicitly clear as to
KEY METAPHORS OF THE GOOGLE+ their speciﬁc functions and better align
EXPERIENCE ARE MISUNDERSTOOD metaphor function with user expectations.


Why Google+ Circles is Failing

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