14th Nov 2018
How might we...
...…choose the right defaults when sharing location and provide people with more control and transparency over them.
Relationship-based location sharing
Relationship-based location sharing that provides users with intelligent defaults over what and how they share.
Product Context
Friendlee is a social app that allows people to organise their friends into groups to share photos, videos, messages and attend events. They can even send money to each other to split bills and event costs.
In order to provide the service, Friendlee is powered by some of the following services and data:
- Friendlee uses an algorithm to predict people's interests and suggest new groups and events they might want to join based on a combination of posting habits, connections and likes.
- Friendlee requires people's location and access to contacts to ensure they are connected to their friends.
- Friendlee stores information you post for better recommendations, automated image descriptions for visually impaired users and the detection of criminal activity or abusive behaviour which breaches Friendlee's community standards (particularly that which is directed at or in reference to children).
Problem & Opportunity
People want to share proximity to a location intuitively when meeting up. They are also concerned about privacy and safety when sharing these details.
Design Features
Friendlee suggests location-sharing based on the strength of relationships
It intelligently defaults to accurate location sharing only with close friends and lets your acquaintances know where you are once you’re close by.
Design Features
For acquaintances: See ETA and location only in close proximity
Friendlee can do the hard work of figuring out whether you’re close or far from each other and reveal only the ETA to the other person, instead of precisely pin-pointing your location.
Design Features
For best buds: Automatic sharing of location information
When sharing location with close friends, Friendlee will update the chat mini-map and ETA to let them know where you are.
Next steps
How might we build on Friendlee’s ideas to…
- Further explore which default settings might best benefit various types of relationships
- Provide users with even more, fine-grained control over location sharing
- Explore how users might define and change sharing rules themselves
