Understanding Multi-platform Social Media Aggregators: A Design and Development Case Study with BTS-DASH

In the current digital landscape, individuals are challenged by the proliferation of social media platforms, making it arduous to aggregate and comprehend information on critical topics efficiently. This fragmentation necessitates a tool that can consolidate and exhibit information succinctly for user consumption. We address this issue by conceptualizing and creating a user-centric dashboard, utilizing the K-pop group BTS as a model for our case study. We used an iterative design methodology to develop the features. The primary focus areas for the dashboard were accessibility, functionality, data integrity, and visual appeal. These features were modified to ensure an intuitive and trustworthy user experience. The final version was built with AngularJS and hosted on Firebase. The dashboard displays data aggregated from multiple reliable social media sources. We subsequently ran a preliminary pilot usability study to illustrate the efficacy of our approach in simplifying the user’s interaction with diverse data sets. Our re-search contributes to the field by proposing guidelines for constructing dashboards that distill multiple social media inputs into an accessible format. We demonstrate how such a tool can significantly aid users in staying informed without being overwhelmed, paving the way for better information management in an era of information overload and empowering users through effective information design.