Reddit Evaluation: User-Centred System Design Report - CO4754 2018-19

This report presents an evaluation of Reddit as a discussion forum and link aggregator, examining its strengths and weaknesses as an information service. A survey was conducted with 132 participants to assess information acceptance and quality. The findings indicate that while Reddit's community is perceived positively, its interface, search functionality, and overall user experience have shortcomings. The report also explores factors contributing to user attrition, such as time consumption and the prevalence of irrelevant content. The evaluation uses the ISE model to analyze information service quality, focusing on usability, trustworthiness, and user satisfaction. The study concludes that Reddit, while successful, can improve its information service quality to better meet user expectations. Desklib provides access to this report and other student-contributed assignments.

Evaluation of Reddit
Abstract:
This report is focused on the evaluation of the
reddit which is a discussion forum and link
aggregator. Reddit, as being a Social News
Aggregator (SNA), is one of the most successful
websites in the world and presents a social media
service which has not been evaluated as an
information service yet. SNAs offer the opportunity
to share user-generated submissions and links
which can be commented and rated. Former
research about Reddit was focused on the
readability and characteristics of posts, and the
lifespan and propagation of its content, internet
activism, and opinion leadership. In order to
understand the information acceptance and quality
a survey was conducted with 132 participants. The
survey result is presented in suitable tables and
lastly a conclusion has been drawn from the
discussion.
1. Introduction:
Social networking sites has gain huge amount of
popularity since the internet era has begun.
Facebook, Instragram and twitter are the top most
used social network since the beginning, however,
in the last couple of years Reddit has begun to
shine than any other social media. Even though, it
cannot be classified as social network it is more
likely a discussion forum and link aggregator [1].
Unlike social media sites, Reddit does not focus on
individuals as there is virtually no profile, matching
and following. For instance, if someone post any
image in facebook, the image will be visible to his
friends or peoples who are following him. The
photo will appear with his name which makes it
obvious who posted it. In reddit, the images are
shown with a little link under the title which is
visible to everyone in the community [2]. Hence, it
can be stated that, reddit is a content base site
where they focus on mainly contents not on
individuals. One of the other significant difference
between typical social networks and reddit is, it is
open for any kind of discuss. Such freedoms make
it preferable my many people and they consider it
as a core part of “internet culture”.
2. Literature review
There are several factors make the reddit a success
full site. One of the biggest factor is migration of
users from dig.com to reddit[3]. Digg.com was a
site similar to reddit which provides kind of same
attitude and design. In 2012, auto submitted
publisher news and change of advertising behavior
on their front page ruined the community and most
of the users migrated to reddit [4]. Even though,
reddit also uses ad to generate revenue as they
cannot survive with it. Reddit also provide a
membership option as “reedit gold” which provides
an ad free environment for the users. Reddit has
been always distinguishing itself from any other
social network by letting the user to be anonymous
[5]. The common factors in social network like
number of followers and friends is nearly irrelevant
in this community [6]. Every user in this
community has the option to use separate identity
in form of consume and persona.
3. Research Method:
In order to investigate the evaluation of
Reddit ISE model is used which is a comprehensive
heuristic model and theoretical framework. The
model is mainly associated with five aspects as in
information environment, time, information
acceptance, and information user and information
service [7]. In this paper, the information service
and information acceptance will be analyzed. The
quality of any information service can be
analytically separated into many concepts as
effectiveness, functionally, efficiency and usability
[8].
4. Survey:
In order to conduct a survey some online
questionnaire was developed. The survey linked
was shared in different social networks like
facebook groups. The first part of the survey was
intended to gather participant details such as age,
gender, origin and highest level of education. The
responses of the participants are recorded on a five
point likert scale. 1 meaning “highly disagree” to 5
meaning highly agree. The participants were asked
to provide their response based on sue, impact and
diffusion of reddit. The questionnaire is also
divided into two groups. One of the participants
who use reddit and other who does not. In order to
understand the information acceptance aspect of the
research the reddit users’ were asked whether they
are using it or not. If they give negative response
they were asked why they quit using the service.
5. Results
All questionnaire was completed by 132
participants who still uses reddit and 55 of the
participants responded they formally used reddit
and do not use the service anymore. Most of
participants were from UK as the survey result
shows that 92% of the total participants. The
survey also shows that male internet users among
age range of 19 to 28 years use reddit and the total
amount of female participants were 22%. The
average time spend on the reddit by the participants
is 16.21 minutes per day. They visited the website
10.60 time averagely. The reddit provides the
platform to post image, text, video, links to a blog,

article and many more. Redidt also provides cloud
search syntax which increases the effectiveness of
retrieval system. The platform uses some
gamification elements. The posts on the front page
are ranked; consequently, they are listed as a
ranking or leaderboard [9]. Besides, it is necessary
to rate the posts and posted comments with
“Karma.” A user can rate it as positive, with an
upvote, or negative, with a down vote [10]. The
voting influences the ranking of a post.
Furthermore, users can collect badges, which are
represented in one's’ profile. Badges can be
collected through several events or site activities
[11]. Concluding, Reddit offers rankings, “Karma”
points, and badges as gamification elements. There
is also the opportunity to become a Reddit Gold
Member [12].
Reddi
t is
1 2 3 4 5 No
rati
ng
Med
ian
Easy
to use
1.
05
2.5
3
6.5
4
41.
77
31.
10
0.2
1
4
Trust
able
6.
54
19.
62
46.
41
20.
68
5.0
6
1.6
9
3
Usefu
l
0.
84
5.0
6
17.
30
40.
93
35.
23
0.6
4
4
Enjoy
able
1.
27
2.5
3
6.5
4
41.
35
48.
10
0.2
1
4
The table shows the responses of the information
system as reddit. The responses are measured by
the perceived easy to use, perceived usefulness was
identified by the statement easy to use, useful,
trustable and useful. 48.10 percent strongly agree
that reddit is enjoyable and 41 percent rate it 4
points while 46.4 arte it with 3 of 5 points of its
trustworthiness.
The users are also asked to respond about the
technical stability, friendly community, coverage of
information, search result precision, easy to use
search function, navigation and user interface.
6. Information acceptance:
The participants were asked where they heard
about the reddit and more than 50% participants
responded they heard about reddit from other social
network. Some of them heard about the reddit from
the friends and only 1percent of them heard about
reddit through advertisement. 25% responded they
found reddit through search engine query
concerning a question.
Why did
you quit
using
Reddit?
percentag
es
Why
would
you quit
using
reddit?
Percentag
es
Found a 19.05% Found a 18.79%
better
SNS
better
SNS
Boring 22.81% Boring 22.74%
Too
much
useless
input
28.14% Too
much
useless
input
27.10%
Time
consumin
g
29.15% Time
consumin
g
28.15%
The participant who are still using reddit are asked
why would they quit reddit. The responds were
expected as 28% of them responded it is very time
consuming where 27 % thinks the site consists too
much useless content and 22 percentage responded
it is simply boring and around 18 percentage
participants found a better SNS. Same question was
asked to the participants who formally used reddit.
The survey results shoes similar results as 29
percentage responded it is very time consuming
and 28 % responded it consists of too much useless
input and 22 percentage responded it is simply
boring and around 19 percentage participants found
a better SNS.
7. Conclusion:
This report is focused on the evaluation of reddit
and how it align with the social networks. The
evaluation results was drawn from a research which
was conducted with 132 participants. The results of
the study showed that the perceived information
service quality suffers from different shortcomings.
The expectation of an SNA in general was higher
than the experience with Reddit[13]. The interface,
navigation, user hostile search function and search
results were mostly perceived negatively. But the
friendliness of the community was a big positive
factor. The users are also asked to respond about
the technical stability, friendly community,
coverage of information, search result precision,
easy to use search function, navigation and user
interface. Unlike social media sites, Reddit does
not focus on individuals as there is virtually no
profile, matching and following. For instance, if
someone post any image in facebook, the image
will be visible to his friends or peoples who are
following him. The photo will appear with his
name which makes it obvious who posted it. In
reddit, the images are shown with a little link under
the title which is visible to everyone in the
community.

8. References:
[1]. Bogers, T. and Wernersen, R., 2014.
Howsocial'are social news sites? exploring
the motivations for using Reddit. com.
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Identifying social roles in reddit using
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Chun, B.G. and Kwon, T.T., 2015,
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memes. College & Research Libraries
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Strohmaier, M. and Lerman, K., 2016.
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