The Study And Design Of Vertical Social Networking Products For The Blue-collar Group

The blue-collar class doesn't get much social attention.Yet they are featured by specifically labelled needs and,despite their relatively low social status,accordingly require access to information and expression of their opinions on sociocultural issues.Due to the development and popularization of the internet,the hundreds of millions of blue-collar workers in China have presented immeasurable potential values,while products or services in the internet market are seldom developed specifically in this scope,especially very few social networking products or services for them.Therefore,based on the discussion about the necessity of the vertical networking services and products for the blue-collar class and with Maslow's requirement pyramid,this study takes "finding the most real,useful and urgent user's needs" as the entry point and blue-collar workers in Chang'an Town,Dongguan as object.By visiting factories,conducting interviews and distributing questionnaires,the field research has collected sufficient data for analysis and generated a detailed report,further discovered the needs of the blue-collar group in 6 dimensions regarding the design of the products tailored for them:convenience,psychological sense of belonging,acquisition of information,career improvement,self-expression and environment of application.By summing up these pertinent ideas in product design,a vertical blue-collar mobile online social networking software called "Blueberries" is designed.This part includes the conception illustrations in the primary steps,the design process from software structure to interface,validation,evaluation,marketing,etc.thus forms a complete design flow.That pertains to the dimention analysis of the blue-collar demands and manifests full interpretation of the value and the significance of the product.This paper introduces the entire design process,including the mind mapping,implementation and modelization of the application.This study intends to draw attention to the needs of the blue-collar class and the blue-collar market,and hopefully it can also provide references for other vertical network service products for the blue-collar workers.This design is not only the result of research,but the demonstration of an innovative understanding and design of the vertical networking products.