Designing tools to support advanced users in new forms of social media interaction

Interface design practices in social media systems change rapidly, routinely presenting new tools and functionalities. In order to attract a broad base of users and acceptance of system enhancements, interface designs are typically highly conventional, building on best practices in HCI. In such systems, the needs of advanced users are often secondary. To probe how the design of tools should be adjusted to the needs of advanced users, we created CrediVis, a tool for visualizing multi-dimensional user data in Wikipedia. Through a two-round study of advanced users, we find that such users value specialized and complex tools designed to fit their needs. We further observed that although they value such advanced tools they prefer conventional rather than novel interface design. Our study suggests that tool design for advanced users must be closely aligned with needs that can be co-discovered with advanced users.