ADL Social Pattern Library

Type of Work	FrameworkProjectStrategy

Design Principles and Patterns to help mitigate online hate

Project Goals

Provides overarching design principles that keep anti-hate design top of mind for social platform UX and product teams

Builds on the product recommendations work ADL CTS done over the last couple of years

Calls attention to the research for many of these recommendations that support their actual success in mitigating hate

Target Audience

User Experience designers working on social platforms and game UX

Front end developers building these interactions

Product managers defining business goals around these interactions

Trust & Safety and/or Policy teams managing user moderation and tools in the platforms

ADL Social Pattern Library Homepage screenshot — Homepage of the ADL Social Pattern Library

ADL Social Pattern Library Principles List — The library launched with six overarching principles.

Hateful Post Interstitial pattern screenshot — Example pattern - Hateful Post Interstitial

ADL Social Patterns Patterns List screenshot — The library launched with 26 patterns to start

ADL Social Patterns Posting Content Pattern screenshot — Example pattern - Posting Comments and Content This pattern included research from PenAmerica.

I am the project lead for the ADL Social Pattern library. Much of the work over the last two years has involved running product brainstorms with UX interns, policy colleagues and other team members within the ADL Center for Technology and Society, guiding and conducting research for each pattern, managing UX interns and reviewing their writing and design work, writing patterns, editing patterns, collating appropriate references and collaborating with other civil society partners including PenAmerica.

The library includes patterns, principles and topics. Each pattern is associated with related topics and principles and the user can toggle between any of these categories.

Additionally, I have curated a group of industry advisors who are working UX professionals, social interaction experts, researchers and product managers who regularly give us feedback on the library.

I am also responsible for socializing the library with different university faculty to develop curriculum with the material and for developing relationships with industry user experience design teams working on social platforms and online games.

Activities for each Pattern:

Break down each major user interaction flow into their smallest bits of micro-interactions.

Research the goal and interaction across mainstream press, user experience design best practices and patterns, academic research, civil society and non-profit research

Write the pattern with emphasis on how the recommendation mitigates hate, how it works, why a platform would use the recommendation, advantages and disadvantages.

Competitive analysis of the recommended interaction across multiple platforms. Screenshot examples if they exist.

Develop Figma interactive example of the recommendation.

Cite references

Press Release for the launch of the project

Team Makeup

UX Design & Project Lead: Erin Malone

UX Design Intern 2021: Anton Castro

UX Design Intern 2020 & Site Designer: Ryan Koble

Design Principles and Patterns to help mitigate online hate

Project Goals

Target Audience

Activities for each Pattern:

Team Makeup

Early Response from the UX Community about the Library