Socratrees: Exploring the Design of Argument Technology for Layman Users

Abstract: Terms like 'misinformation', 'fake news', and 'echo chambers' permeate current discussions on the state of the Internet. We believe a lack of technological support to evaluate, contest, and reason about information online---as opposed to merely disseminating it---lies at the root of these problems. Several argument technologies support such functionality, but have seen limited use outside of niche communities. Most research systems overemphasize argument analysis and structure, standing in stark contrast with the informal dialectical nature of everyday argumentation. Conversely, non-academic systems overlook important implications for design which can be derived from theory. In this paper, we present the design of a system aiming to strike a balance between structured argumentation and ease of use. Socratrees is a website for collaborative argumentative discussion targeting layman users, but includes sophisticated community guidelines and novel features inspired by informal logic. During an exploratory study, we evaluate the usefulness of our imposed structure on argumentation and investigate how users perceive it. Contributing to arguments remains a complex task, but most users learned to do so effectively with minimal guidance and all recognized that the structure of Socratrees may improve online discussion and results in a clearer overview of arguments.