Beyond Functionality: Measuring the Social Dimension of User Experience
Four newly developed Social UX Scales to add to your toolbox
User experience (UX) measurement has traditionally emphasised pragmatic aspects like usability and functionality. However, the social dimension of UX, which explores how products support users' social needs and interactions, is gaining prominence. Despite this, many UX evaluation tools lack the capacity to measure these social factors.
The Rise of Social UX
Social UX delves into how products and services cater to users' needs for connection, relationships, and social interaction. In today's digital landscape where social media, online platforms, multiplayer games, and remote collaboration tools are ubiquitous, UX design is evolving. It's not just about making these platforms user-friendly; it’s about ensuring they support users’ social needs and goals, making interactions engaging and meaningful.
Key social factors of interest include:
Self-expression: How a product allows users to showcase personal identity and style.
Social learning and influence: Utilising product features to learn from others and influence them.
Relatedness and belonging: Feeling a sense of connection and community through product interactions.
Social communication: Opportunities for conversations, collaborations, and sharing.
Social approval: How using a product impacts acceptance and approval from peers.
These social motivations are powerful psychological drivers that significantly influence user engagement with products and services. Modern users increasingly expect social support alongside pragmatic functionality.
However, existing UX evaluation tools often overlook these social factors. For instance, the widely used AttrakDiff questionnaire only includes a single "Identification" scale related to self-expression. Other tools like the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) and the extended UEQ+ completely bypass social dimensions. This measurement gap is becoming more evident as social capabilities are central to technology adoption and user satisfaction.
Bridging the Gap: New Social UX Scales
Mortazavi and other researchers from Polytechnique Montreal aimed to address this gap by developing new standardised scales tailored specifically to measuring key social interactions and motivations. Their goal was to develop scales that could work with the UEQ+ and other popular scales to provide a more holistic UX measurement. The development process drew on literature review to identify relevant social sub-dimensions like sociability and social acceptance. Multi-round surveys then refined scale items using factor analysis.
They created four resulting scales assessing distinct aspects:
Identification: It echoes the constructs of AttrakDiff, focusing on how users perceive their personal and social image in connection with a product. It’s about the need to showcase one’s identity, influence, and power to the social sphere.
Social Interaction: It measures the effectiveness of a product in facilitating communication, collaboration, and emotional sharing among users.
Social Stimulation: It is about the motivation a product provides to make users more socially active. It reflects how a product can serve as a catalyst for social engagement
Social Acceptance: It is tied to the users’ sense of approval and recognition by their peers. It’s about experiencing positive emotions, like pride, resulting from being acknowledged and validated by others.
The social UX scales are scored in a way similar to the UEQ; a seven-stage scale is used and the items are scaled from -3 to +3. Thus, -3 represents the most negative answer, 0 a neutral answer, and +3 the most positive answer.
The researchers tested the validity of the newly developed tools across 450 users of socially-oriented products such as social networks, shopping sites and banking. Confirmatory factor analysis showed the new scales reliably measured distinct social factors.
Participants evaluated various socially-oriented products using the new scales along with AttrakDiff and UEQ+. Results showed the new social UX scales have good reliability — reliability refers to the consistency and repeatability of research findings — and internal consistency — the research accurately measures what it intends to measure, guaranteeing that the results genuinely represent the studied phenomenon. The scales were also able to effectively discriminate between products with different social capabilities.
The researchers found high correlation between the new scales and the identification and attractiveness dimensions of AttrakDiff and UEQ+. This shows the social UX scales are related to overall product appeal. Moderate correlations with pragmatic scales like efficiency and usability were also observed for highly social products.
Results demonstrated the scales can effectively discriminate between products and provide insights to guide improved socially-oriented design. Used together with pragmatic UEQ+ measures, researchers and practitioners can now capture the full spectrum of both social and functional qualities shaping modern technology experiences.
However, some limitations should be noted. First, the products evaluated were limited to interactive digital technologies. Further research could examine other product categories like fashion, automobiles, and the arts that also have strong social influences.
Additionally, the study relied on self-reported assessments rather than observations of actual product use. While a controlled lab setting may provide more objective data, the survey approach enabled a much larger and more diverse sample.
When to use the new Social UX Scales
The researchers suggest the newly developed scales can be applied in studies alongside UEQ+ pragmatic dimensions and other established functionality measures. This full spectrum approach can reveal insights to guide better UX design decisions. The newly developed scales may be particularly relevant when evaluating social-centric products like social media, collaboration tools and multi-player games.
In summary, the new scales represent an important step toward complete UX measurement. Their development helps bridge the gap in quantifying social motivations fundamental to modern technology adoption and satisfaction. This paves the way for more holistic UX research and design strategies.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Would love to dive deeper into how this can be used within the gaming industry.
Nice write up! Curios if there’s any academic research in the fields of social science to inform the survey design. If there is, it would be nice to include citations to add credibility and give credit.