IA summit closing plenery

Fast, cheap & somewhat in control 10 lessons from the design of SlideShare
Rashmi Sinha
Uzanto & SlideShare

Who am I?
my influences…

Prof. Bill Heindel
Dept of Psychology
Brown University
Prof. Andy Van Dam Dept of Computer Science Brown University 1993-1998

Prof. Marti Hearst
Information School
UC Berkeley
Prof. Hal Varian Information School UC Berkeley 1999-2002

IA thoughts about the state of the field…

No navel gazing well, maybe a little

Rumors of the death of IA have been greatly exaggerated

old timers back for more

new comers who found like-minded people

and some products

Product Management Second Life Analytics Entrepreneurship Social IA Social IA Blog data mining Search engine optimization Web 2.0 RIAs Mobile IA UX management Prediction markets topics – some old, some new

Registrations at IA Summit are growing

the story of MindCanvas & SlideShare

working at a startup…

UX methods or just in time design

SlideShare
launched Oct 2006

Presentations are hard to share
A social critique of PowerPoint
Large-scale sharing
A social space, not a utility: Office 2.0?

First generation Social Networks (Friendster, LinkedIn…) 1) I am linked to -> -> to you --->You are linked to her -> ---> on…
How it works
People connect to each other
Six degrees of separation
“ Are you my friend” type of awkwardness

Second generation social network (networks with objects in between, e.g., Flickr, Yahoo answers) 1) I share my pics -> -> with you ---> -->You share your pics -> ---> with him
How it works
People share objects | watch others
Connections through objects
Social info streams: emergence of popular, interesting items

good content floats to top
Multiple models of popularity
Users drive navigation

Slides as MICROCONTENT
URL for every slide
Comment on individual slides

What people share on SlideShare
Venture capitalists share advise
Ministers share sermons
Teachers share lesson plans
Entrepreneurs share business plans

how SlideShare fits into people’s live

10 Lessons from SlideShare

1. The alpha as the first reaction

2. The beta is the market probe
Research is about hypotheticals, get feedback to real thing
Our methods are individualistic
What is the risk of failure?

How developed should the Beta be?
Get basic concept across and no more
Leave room for flexibility

2. You don’t need personas
When you know your users by name
They want to visit your offices
They email you everyday

Get into a conversation with users
Answer emails personally
Monitor blogs, subscribe to RSS
Customer service as user research

3. Launch first, refine later
Don’t over-analyze
Look at best practices, take a guess
Put it out there. Respond. Refine.

4. There is something about social websites
Design works differently than design for individual

MindCanvas as design for the individual Usability Control Interaction Flow Engagement

SlideShare as design for the crowd People interacting Following each other Wisdom of crowds

5. Get yourself a shadow app
Keep a pulse on main metrics
Simpler than logs, faster than usability testing
Whole team responds to it
Experiments without A-B setup

6. designer-developer role is crucial
Easier communication
Reduced design work

7. Under invest in visual design
Let users feel ownership of space
Unpolished look is fine

8. Pay attention to technical simplicity Balance user needs & technical simplicity Complexity > slower, riskier, harder to maintain

9. Single biggest win: make app faster

10 . designers as entrepreneurs
How to find first 1000 users or first 100 customers
Lifestyle business?

Find yourself a developer partner Focus on execution You cannot just “hire a developer”

Picture of data center

Do you need traditional UX methods to design a SlideShare ?

YES : When feedback becomes a torrent
Feedback form not enough. Too unstructured
Issues need prioritization
Diff users -> diff features
New team members need summary info
Improvements beyond low hanging fruits

Capitulate Collaborate or Initiate
Marianne Sweeny

What when everyone is a designer?
Jared Spool

What when everyone is a developer? Mashup RSS feeds (Yahoo Pipes?) Build your own social network (Ning?) Play with an API (Google Maps?)

Finally
Some summit slides
http://www.slideshare.net/tag/iasummit07
you can find me at
http://www.slideshare.net/rashmi

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IA summit closing plenery

by Rashmi Sinha

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