Social media platforms know more about your mood than your friends do. They just never tell you. ALGO asks what happens if they did.
18-24 use social media
as primary news source
use for Gen Z,
highest of any group
across 3 platforms
in 48 hours
for our design
over the alternative
Awareness without control
Young Australians are digitally aware but feel powerless. They know algorithms shape their feeds, they can feel it, but have no language for it and no tools to push back.
The more users understand they are being manipulated, the more helpless they feel. Awareness alone is not empowerment.
"I know the algorithm decides what I see, but I don't really get how? Sometimes I just wish I had more control, instead of scrolling past the same kind of posts every day."
· Matt, 21, University Student, Melbourne20+ surveys. 21 interviews.
One clear finding.
We ran speed interviews across 21 participants and a survey of 23 respondents in under 48 hours. Three patterns came up again and again.
Borrowed from the supermarket
We treated the nutrition label as the metaphor: make the invisible legible. Early sketches tracked consumption, reels, and the human cost of endless personalisation. That thread became ALGO.
Landscape · ideation wall
Three features. One goal: agency.
A/B tested with 100 real responses
We used Rapidata.io to run real-time A/B testing during the designathon. 100 participants, two design directions tested at the same time. The results were clear.
What we learned about designing for empowerment
The most surprising thing we found: users don't want to understand algorithms. They want to feel in control. Those are different things. Understanding something doesn't make you feel less powerless, agency does.
Transparency, when made playful and legible, lands differently than a lecture about media literacy. That felt good to learn.
