Best practices for simulation building

Best Practices for Simulation Building

• Create the actors first.

  • Be creative but not TOO creative. Aim for believability.

  • Remember who your target audience and participants will be.

  • Be consistent!

  • Use profile images that are not easily found on Google Images.

  • Don’t be too perfect! Most people don’t fill everything out completely.

• Then, create posts for your actors.

  • Use (or get) your own images that look “real” and not easily found online.

  • Be consistent! Two bots can’t have the same kitchen if you haven’t stated somewhere that they live together, etc.

  • Be fun and create a story for your bot. What is their day like? What do they post? What do they like?

  • Spread out the timing of posts and follow the same rules you listed for participants (remember these bots should look and act like other participants in the study).

  • Create some spam/political infighting/internet drama/web trash as no site is perfect.

  • Think about “likes” the posts get, what is popular on the site, what is not.

• After creating posts, create comments on these posts.

  • Be quick and short.

  • Positive but not too positive.

  • Role play as your actor, do all your comments for one actor at a time, role-playing as that actor.

  • Have some small conversations between actors in the comments.

  • This is where we create “community”.

• Define actor behaviors (liking, reading, commenting) in response to participant behavior.

  • When making comments in response to a participant's posts, make it super generic. It should be a comment that could apply to ANY photo.

  • Make a few, but not too much (no more than what you have created as normal for other posts on the site already).

• Write together as a research team.

  • If you are creating and writing a simulation collaboratively, upload the CSV files to Google Docs or Box. Makes it much easier to edit together.

• Test test test!

  • Live in your simulation and experience what feels real or fake.

  • Test with those who have not used your simulation before, and get their opinion on the realism and believability of the simulation.