3. “ If ease of use were the only requirement, we would all be riding tricycles” Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the mouse http://flickr.com/photos/sfj/611720154/
9. The Social Web is a digital space where data about human interactions is as important as other data types for providing value Community is when those humans care about each other.
10. What kind of social functionality do you need? Social Features Social Marketing Social Support When you want to leverage your customers to promote your product Customers help each other to reduce support costs Your site is social at the core: blogs, networks, photosharing.
14. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 5. Self-Actualization 4. Esteem 3. Love/Belonging 2. Safety 1. Physiological Morality, Creativity. Spontaneity, Problem solving, Lack of prejudice Self-esteem, Confidence, Achievement, Respect by others Friendship, Family, Sexual intimacy Security of body, or employment, of resources, Of morality, or the family, of health , of property Breathing, Food, Water, Sex, Sleep, Homeostasis, Excretion
15. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Self-Actualization Esteem Love/Belonging Safety Physiological The Social Web is built here, from love and esteem
19. What's the motivation of behind these people actually interacting and participating? … people want to share with the community what they believe to be important …. and they want to see their name in lights. They want to see their little icon on the front page, their username on the front page, so other people can see it. 2. Reputation
24. 205 Structure Follows Social Spaces Conflict No building ever feels right to the people in it unless the physical spaces (defined by columns, walls, and ceilings) are congruent with the social spaces (defined by activities and human groups). Resolution A first principle of construction; on no account allow the engineering to dictate the building's form. Place the load bearing elements- the columns and the walls and floors- according to the social spaces of the building; never modify the social spaces to conform to the engineering structure of the building.
25. 36. Degrees of publicness Conflict: People are different, and the way they want to place their houses in a neighborhood is one of the most basic kinds of difference. Resolution: Make a clear distinction between three kinds of homes―those on quiet backwaters, those on busy streets, and those that are more or less in-between. Make sure that those on quiet backwaters are on twisting paths, and that these houses are themselves physically secluded; make sure that the more public houses are on busy streets with many people passing by all day long and that the houses themselves are exposed to the passers-by. The in-between houses may then be located on the paths halfway between the other two. Give every neighborhood about an equal number of these three kinds of homes.
28. TOWNS The language begins with patterns that define towns and communities. These patterns can never be designed or built in one fell swoop - but patient piecemeal growth, designed in such a way that every individual act is always helping to create or generate these larger global patterns, will, slowly and surely, over the years, make a community that has these global patterns in it. BUILDINGS We now, start that part of the language which gives shape to individual buildings. These are the patterns which can be "designed)' or "built”- the patterns which define the individual buildings and the space between buildings; where we are dealing for the first time with Patterns that are under the control of individuals or small groups of individuals, who are able to build the patterns all at once:
29. Social Space presence Sign-up Invitations Distribution (Viral) Relationships Identity Activity Invitations Collab Comm Share Groups Attention Contacts Presence Reputation Profile Sign-up
32. PROFILE If you were going to build a piece of social software to support large and long-lived groups, what would you design for? The first thing you would design for is handles the user can invest in. Clay Shirky, A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
39. REPUTATION Second, you have to design a way for there to be members in good standing . Have to design some way in which good works get recognized. The minimal way is, posts appear with identity. You can do more sophisticated things like having formal karma or "member since."
69. you have to find a way to spare the group from scale. Scale alone kills conversations, because conversations require dense two-way conversations. [Dunbar] found that the MAXIMUM number of people that a person could keep up with socially at any given time, gossip maintenance, was 150. This doesn't mean that people don't have 150 people in their social network, but that they only keep tabs on 150 people max at any given point.
94. Verb! That’s what’s happening… Nouns (objects) Verbs (actions) Social Verbs (viral actions) Videos Play, stop, edit, store upload Share, comment on, embed in blog, rate, reply to Articles Read, archive, quote, print Share, comment on, annotate, link to Photos Store, view, add to favorites, digitally edit, make prints Share, comment on, embed in blog, link to, tag Products Read, add to cart, purchase, add to wishlist Share, add to wedding registry, comment on rate tag, discuss, review
114. Social Space presence Sign-up Invitations Relationships Identity Activity Invitations Collab Comm Share Groups Attention Contacts Presence Reputation Profile Distribution (Viral) Sign-up
124. Are you sure? Really sure? Absolutely sure? Argh... Maybe not
125.
126.
127. Jam jar A grocery store alternated allowing customers to sample 24 different flavors of jam & 6 different flavors of jam. With 24, more people came to the table but 1/10th as many people bought jam. Barry Schwartz, Paradox of Choice
154. At Blogger, we determined that our most critical metric was number of posts. An increase in posts meant that people were not just creating blogs, but updating them, and more posts would drive more readership, which would drive more users, which would drive more posts. Ev Williams - Founder of Blogger and Twitter
171. Durability “ Durability will be assured when foundations are carried down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected” Vitruvius
172. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel, Japan, survived an earthquake The reflecting pool provided a source of water for fire-fighting; Cantilevered floors and balconies provided extra support for the floors; A copper roof, cannot fall on people below the way a tile roof can; Seismic separation joints, located about every 20 m along the building; Tapered walls, thicker on lower floors, increasing their strength; Suspended piping and wiring, instead of being encased in concrete, smooth curves, making them more resistant to fracture.
173. Technical Earthquakes Slow loading javascript fails on low bandwidth, and can cause users to accidently search for the label inside your search box. Is your site designed to be robust when things break (for example, filter out the label from the query. Or don’t place labels in fields; it reduces usage anyhow.) I’m searching for “my architect, not “movies, directors, actors”
174. Social Earthquakes If people post jobs in discussion areas, any user can move them to job board If people use connection invites to spam/market, they can be reported.
175.
176.
177. “ Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.” Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian houses were beautiful, human scaled.. And didn’t have closet space. Should we choose beauty over usability sometimes?
178. Human Human The Facebook Inbox is chock full of annoying non-human mails, despite the fact they know who is human and who I am connected to. Not convenient.
180. I call it the "Then What?" Okay, you solved all the problems, you did all the stuff, you made nice, you loved your clients, you loved the materials, you loved the city, you're a good guy, you're a good person... and then what? What do you bring to it? See his great TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/frank_gehry_asks_then_what.html
181. Beauty (delight) “ when the appearance of the work is pleasing and in good taste, and when its members are in due proportion according to correct principles of symmetry.” Vitrvius
192. Humans don’t like empty spaces. Create starter objects – newsfeeds can be good.
193. Servant and Served Spaces ‘ I do not like ducts; I do not like pipes. I hate them really thoroughly, but because I hate them so thoroughly, I feel they have to be given their place . If I just hated them and took no care, I think they would invade the building and completely destroy it.’ The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn , 1962
204. Speed 25mph 5 mph 60mph Medieval architecture designed to be walked by, prairie houses to drive by slowly at suburban speeds, and the strip for freeway speeds
205. Speed 25mph 5 mph 60mph Consider speed of use in design; do not slow interface with details upon sign up, richer interface for where people linger and socialize
While the end user is the final owner of their own identity, the designer can set up certain expectations and encourage behavior that is beneficial for the site goals. For example, Orkut collects and displays gender and marital state prominently. This sets the tone for a romantic environment. The rest fo the profile circles around hobbies and personal interest, including many personal items form politic views and personal vices. Linked it doesn’t touch any of these bits of information, focusing on job history and education. PublicSquare collects very little explicit informaiton, and focuses on collecting activity such as stories written, comments made. Even avatar can set the tone for a system. Yahoo originally envisioned Yahoo Answers as a human supplement for search, in which smart people could answer complex problems. Instead it’s become a teen hangout. Could the choice of using avatars from messanger hat make everyone into a young hip cartoon character have influenced this? Vimeo cleverly encourages users to upload an avatar by using a monkey as the default image. No one feels very happy about being portreyed as a monkey (or pehaps it’s a Cro-Magnon man. None the less, not flattering.) A final thought– I used different avatars on publicsquare and on basecamp. I was told at one point by an editor it wasn’t fair my using the photo of me and my newborn, as she could deny me nothing when she saw that image.
While the end user is the final owner of their own identity, the designer can set up certain expectations and encourage behavior that is beneficial for the site goals. For example, Orkut collects and displays gender and marital state prominently. This sets the tone for a romantic environment. The rest fo the profile circles around hobbies and personal interest, including many personal items form politic views and personal vices. Linked it doesn’t touch any of these bits of information, focusing on job history and education. PublicSquare collects very little explicit informaiton, and focuses on collecting activity such as stories written, comments made. Even avatar can set the tone for a system. Yahoo originally envisioned Yahoo Answers as a human supplement for search, in which smart people could answer complex problems. Instead it’s become a teen hangout. Could the choice of using avatars from messanger hat make everyone into a young hip cartoon character have influenced this? Vimeo cleverly encourages users to upload an avatar by using a monkey as the default image. No one feels very happy about being portreyed as a monkey (or pehaps it’s a Cro-Magnon man. None the less, not flattering.) A final thought– I used different avatars on publicsquare and on basecamp. I was told at one point by an editor it wasn’t fair my using the photo of me and my newborn, as she could deny me nothing when she saw that image.
One thing any community needs to be inviting and vibrant is a sense of life. Things are happening here. That is manifested in presence: footprints if you will, freshly left in digital sand. In forums this is often displayed as most recent posts, and how many users are in a forum. On Slideshare we see latest upted; on vimeo the front page has an animated billboard of videos posted. IM has the greatest power in it’s immediacy and the subtlety of feedback. It now can represent presence and absences, but also redirects to alternative communication, idleness, and the liklihood of return. Workign comunities has a more direct use for presense. Basecamp and PublicSquare take a cue from presence indicators to let you know whos working and who’s slacking.
Named Levels: Define a family of reputation levels on a progressive continuum. Each level is higher than the one before it. Unique names give the levels a fun and approachable quality. Quick comparisons between levels, however, become slightly more difficult. http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/namedlevels.html Numbered Levels: Establish a family of reputations on a progressive continuum. Each level achieved is higher than the one before it. Refer to each level by its number , which makes comparisons between levels very straightforward and easy to do. http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/numberedlevels.html Identifying Labels: Define a family of reputation labels that are not sequential in nature. Craft each one to identify and reward particular behaviors or qualities within a community. These labels are helpful for consumers in identifying more-experienced contributors who possess these qualities. http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/identifyinglabels.html Points: Maintain and display a cumulative count of the number of points user has earned within a community. The points generally come from performing specific activities on the site. Points are best-awarded to congratulate performance rather than merely to acknowledge activity. http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/points.html Collectible Achievements may seem silly or trivial, but they can have an addictive quality that may compel your users to explore parts of your offering that otherwise might not appeal to them. http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/achievements.html
Reputation is also something all communities will manage on their own. Closed communities such as mailing lists rarely need forum mechanisms for reputation. However, in public communities where there are a large number ofdrive-by visitors, dilettante participants, or even simply too many people to keep track informally, reputation mechanisms are needed. Amazon does this via top 500 reviewer and real name (real name also helps promote identity ownership which makes communities more trustworthy) Ebay collects ratings on behavior which rills into a reputation. Many forums have named reputation levels based on a variety of behaviors form seniority, participation and financial contribution. While it’s often hard to know what these titles mean, it’s clear they bequest a certain weight to that individual’s posts. PublicSquare awards points to users based on positive behavior, weighting them on value of contribution.
Hi My name is Jen Ruffner. As Christina mentioned I’m going to talk about Site Flow Optimization Before before I jump into a website --- I want to visit an experience that we are all familiar with – eating out. I’ll talk about some of the industry secrets that restaurants use to improve the check’s bottom line. What’s interesting is that some of them translate very nicely to what you can do on a website, and some just seem to go against what we would believe to be common sense.
High margin items in the upper right hand corner of the menu “ 1978 issue of The Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly” High margin items in the upper right hand corner of the menu
And then counter clockwise to the right bottom ---- Which is why you see appetizers in the top left “ People tend to remember the top two items on a list and the bottom item” Steve Miller This lesson here is that every site is different. Some things work everywhere and other sites have communities that go against the norm. You should always be iterating by learning from your users and testing new approaches.
Much like search results
Reduce any hurdle that you can see between the user and what you want them to do. In this case, not only does the user have to remember to ask the waiter what the market price is before ordering, but they also risk embarassment
For a social website -- your goals are probably include growth, engagement, and revenue. So key flows and conversions you should be focussed on include: - getting a user registered - getting them to submit content or share something - or getting them to buy something….
The first flow that I’m going to walk through is registration. Registration is obviously an important flow for just about any web site. As I walk through the flow, I’m going to pointing out very small details that can make a big difference to the bottom line. While we’re walking through these slides, I’d encourage you to think of a few flows on your site where some optimization would be beneficial. Looking at the same site day in and day out, it’s sometimes easy to overlook some obvious changes. Hopefully this presentation will help you get in the mindset for optimization and look at things with a fresh eye.
One of the most popular ways to hear about a social site is through a friend Objective is to get people to open the email. How do you do that? Who is it sent from? Should use the inviter’s name – not the site Twitter doesn’t Users are more likely to open an email when it’s from a friend instead of a website. Twitter doesn’t even mention my name in the subject line. People won’t recognize JenG24 Is the subject line short, but compelling Does it make you feel wanted and special? Twitter doesn’t even use my name in the subject Facebook – first off when I sent this email it wasn’t to share photos. It was just to invite my friend to join the site. Second, it doesn’t make me feel special. Tagged makes me feel good because something is waiting there and it’s specifically for me Suggestions 1. Make the reader feel like they need to respond, while still keeping it light. 2. Wildcards – try jazzing up the subject line to see if it does anything [SMILEY FACE]
Subject lines are easy to test for a lot of reasons
Good Picture is great for conversation AND it clicks to register The stats about me tell the story of what you can do on Facebook (social learning)
Bad Too many links (make one clear call to action and lock down the flow) Note that one link is in case you already have an account. Normally I’d say to remove it, but I’d imagine that FB gets a lot of CS requests to merge duplicate accounts. If that is costing a lot of money it may be worth keeping that link here). Too much text – don’t make the user read a story here – get them to join the site and let them learn from their friends. Call to action is to sign up for facebook – not look at Jen’s photos Suggestions – Images can be scary to put in the email because the user may not download it. In that event add text about where I live or where I went to school etc.
Good Buttons instead of a link is a very clear call to action. Both buttons click to reg – if you click no you register without becoming friends with the inviter. Posed a question which envokes the user to respond. Bad - The messaging is a little harsh
Empty if the user selects not to download images.
You’ve got to get it to one page. Why? Because once you have the user’s email, you can reach out to them and try to get them to come back. If you bog them down with excess requested information, you’re going to lose them. Email address Good Holding the users hand by keeping the inviter at the top of the page w/ good messaging like “Join your friends on MS” Mentions the word “Free” Absolute minimal requirements. - Prepopulated the email address Order! Submit button is above the fold and it’s a good clear call to asking IT’s a good idea that any page in this flow, the submit button needs to be above the fold. That doesn’t mean that you should take what was 3 really long pages and turn them into 6 short pages, because there is a drop off rate of about 20% per page. Make sure you get as much as you can and need before you’ve lost the opportunity to land them on the home page and let them do what they came there to do. Got rid of the checkbox that they agree to the TOS Kept the captcha until later
Bad Get rid of the nav Cirsor not defaulted Should have default selected one of the genders Full looks like first
Good No nav Progress bar Good header - it’s inviting and rewarding Held the users hand with info on the inviter and allows you to get more information inline Handholding text as to why you should do certain things (rewarding the user) Country is prepopulated The button is a good color and has a good message. Buttons are important not only because they are the main call to action, but it’s the last thing that a user looks at before they decide whether or not to continue. Bad Get rid of the marketing text Allow the user to skip things that aren’t optional
Groups can be implicit, created by a shared tag or life goal as in 43 things, or they can be explicit such as discussion and sharing groups. Explicitly choosing to join a group will create greater commitment to nurture that group. Implicit is fun, but rarely creates more than happy serendipity…. Community comes from opting in, and the more the effort the higher the commitment and the deeper the staying power. The well is a paid community with legs, X% of the IAI say they pay the 40 bucks a year for the mailing list. Relationships can become groups as implicit gets articulated as explicit.
Old fiat ad. Bet I got your attention…
Low conversion, but HUGE gains. Lots of invites amazing data (PYMK)
Schoolhouse rock?
Conversations, communication, that’s the heart and soul of community. No how much software we build, people build the relationships and they build it out of words first. If you don’t’ have a place for people to put their words, no community is every possible; only a viewership. And that is a weak tie. There are no fanfiction sites that have outlived their original inspiration. Communities last if they can talk to each other. Conversation can take many forms. Forums and comments on stories are public, conversations in productivity aps such as basecamp and PublicSquare are antoehr. PublicSquare and Yahoo suggest encourages group creations of stories features. Cambrian House uses conversations to bring ideas into products. Twitter blends presence with conversation with little tweats of “I am here, alive! Aware!” Interestingly enough, Amazon has made it impossible to conduct conversation because of their usefulness rating. Unable to guarantee chronological display of their comments, reviewers can only broadcast their views.
Gifting is a primitive human behavior; it binds us. It can be used in persuasion to bend others to our desires. But in community settings, sharing – witch is always a gift– is what holds the members to each other. Sharing first gathers people of like interests, then it allows for an exchange of ideas, and as the community tightens permits for an exchange of dreams and hopes, secrets and fears. Conversation and community are intertwined in the economy of community.
consistent, predictable, and delightful easy to start –Share anything with anyone Easy to finish – do you need to require the user to log in? Don’t require title, description – just a URL etc. Mass distribution – cc twitter and/or FB, aggregators have lots of options. Easy to continue- create viral loops (opportunities to share and to keep sharing) Provide the right distribution and contexts for sharing Get people engaged in that content: commenting, resharing, attribution ( create virality) Physical: visibility and affordance of entry points Psychological: less intimidating positioning (“what are you working on”) and stronger cta Improve viral loops: lengthen the funnel Improve feedback loops
If you build it Marketings job? Word of mouth
Check wikipedia for history
Privacy Conservation of complexity Default to public
Put things at hand, where people can find them
SEO Embeds Blog this Digg this Lists Most popular Most emailed
Neolithic monument in present day Turkey Occupied between 6300 BC to 5400 BC Supported a population of up to 6000 people It was the largest and most cosmopolitan city of its time
Commodity, firmness, delight
The hotel had several design features that made up for its foundation: The reflecting pool (visible in the picture above) also provided a source of water for fire-fighting , saving the building from the post-earthquake firestorm; [1] Cantilevered floors and balconies provided extra support for the floors; A copper roof, which cannot fall on people below the way a tile roof can; Seismic separation joints , located about every 20 m along the building; Tapered walls, thicker on lower floors, increasing their strength; Suspended piping and wiring, instead of being encased in concrete, as well as smooth curves, making them more resistant to fracture. [2]
The MIT project, they were interviewing me for MIT and they sent their facilities people to Bilbao. I met them in Bilbao. They came for three days. W: This is the computer building. G: They were there for three days and it rained every day. And they kept walking around. I noticed they were looking under things and looking for things, and they wanted to know where the buckets were hidden, people putting buckets out. I was clean. There wasn't a bloody leak in the place. It was just fantastic. But you've got to -- yeah, well, up until then, every building leaked. W: Frank had a sort of -- sort of had a fame -- his -- his fame was built on that in L.A. for a while. You know, Frank, you've all heard the Frank Lloyd Wright story when the guy -- the woman called and said, "Mr. Wright, my -- I'm sitting in the couch and the water's pouring in on my head," and he said, "Madame, move your chair." G: So, some years later I was doing a little house on the beach for Norton Simon, and his secretary was kind of a hell-on-wheels type lady -- called me and said, Mr. Simon's sitting at his desk, and the water's coming in on his head, and I told him the Frank Lloyd Wright story. W: Didn't get a laugh. G: No. Not now either.
It's the "Then What?" that most clients who hire architects -- most clients aren't hiring architects for that. They're hiring them to get it done, get it on budget, you know, and not -- you know, be polite -- and they're missing out on the -- the real value of an architect.
The Key Word is: Proportion. No matter what you may call it – beauty, eye appeal, good taste, or architectural compatibility, limiting the size of electrical advertising displays does not ensure any of these. Proper proportion – the relationship of the graphic elements to each other– are necessary to a good design, whether is be a matter of clothing, art, architecture or an electric sign. Relative size, not over-all size, is the factor in determining guidelines which will satisfactorily