Download - Designing Social Iasummit
Designing Social Websites
Christina Wodtke
Page about Christina
Whatis social, really?
humans
emotions
BUT THIS IS THE INTERNET
Social Software can be loosely defined as software which supports, extends, or derives added value from, human social behavior - message-boards, musical taste-sharing, photo-sharing, instant messaging, mailing lists, social networking.
Social XXX
• Usenet• Forums• Email• Mailing lists• Groupware• Social Networks Services• Social Software• Social Media
Nothing New
The Social Webis a digital space where data about human interactions is as important as other data types for providing value
Communityis when those humans care about each other.
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
costsYour site is social at the core: blogs,
networks, photosharing.
Howdo you design social?
B=f(P+E)
- Lewin’s Equation
Behavior is a function of a Person and his Environment
Understand the Person
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
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Self-Actualization
Esteem
Love/Belonging
Safety
Physiological
The Social Web is built here, from love and esteem
Motivation for hours(and hours and hours)of work
Kollock’s 4 Motivations for Contributing
1. Reciprocity2. Reputation3. Increased sense of
efficacy4. Attachment to and
need of a group
- Peter Kollock, UCLA
1. Reciprocity
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
3. Increased sense of efficacy
4. Attachment to and need of a group
The New Third Place?
“All great societies provide informal meeting places, like the Forum in ancient Rome or a contemporary English pub. But since World War II, America has ceased doing so. The neighborhood tavern hasn't followed the middle class out to the suburbs...” -- Ray Oldenburg
Design the Environment
205 Structure Follows Social Spaces
ConflictNo 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).
ResolutionA 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.
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.
Create space by building around it
Identity
Activity Relationships
SocialSpace
Sign-
upInvitations
Distribution (Viral)
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:
SocialSpace
presenceSign-
upInvitations
Distribution (Viral)
Collab Comm
Share
Relationships
Groups Attention
Contacts
Identity
Presence
Reputation
Profile
Activity
Sign-
upInvitations
StrategizeExercise 1: brainstorm a
new feature or site area that brings a appropriate community to your website.
Things to think about:
• Business goals: how does this community further the needs of the company?
• User goals: what makes this community attractive in a time when they have a hundred other places vying for their attention. What is the personal worth of the tools?
• What if no one shows up, can it still have value?• Community nature: will this be a true community, or will this
be a collective wisdom tool? Think about the spectrum.• Approach to Creation: can you partner. rather than build?
Identity
Presence Reputa-tion
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
PROFILE
Profile Avatar
Biography
Collections
History
Identity is Context Based
Facebook- Personal LinkedIN - Professional
Avatar
Collections
PRESENCE
Presence
Status
History
Signs of life
Company
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."
REPUTATION
Reputation is…
Information used to make a value judgment about an
object or person…
Why do you need reputation?
• Key Decision #1: What are the key business objectives of your reputation system?– Build Trust– Promote Quality– Facilitate Member Matching– Sustain Loyalty
What makes reputation?
• Key decision #2: What information should be included in your user’s reputation profile?– Which actions are most relevant to the reputation
system’s users?– Which user behaviors are desirable?– For which behaviors is it possible to obtain reliable
information?
How do you present reputation?
• Key Decision #3:– Raw activity statistics. Examples: number of reviews
posted, number of transactions completed.– Scores and distinctions. Examples: star ratings (such as
Amazon reviews), numerical scores (eBay’s feedback score), numbered levels or named member tiers (Slashdot’s “moderator” and “meta-moderator” tiers) or achievement badges (eBay power seller, Amazon Top Reviewer).
– Leaderboards and other methods of displaying relative user rankings. Examples: the list of top Amazon reviewers; Epinions’ author popularity ranking.
Reputations
Badging
Rating
Named levels
Points
STRATEGIZEExercise 2: what elements do you need for identity?
PresenceReputat
ion
Profile
SITE OPTIMIZATION: SIGN-UP
Tiny changes that yield big wins
Identity
Activity Relationships
SocialSpace
Sign-
up
Invitations
Distribution (Viral)
Page about Christina
Quiz
1
23
4
Placement
Flow
1
2
3
4
Organization
Entrees
Pricing
1. $11.99
2. 12
3. twelve Increases the spending by 8.15%
per person
Increases the spending by 8.15%
per person
Avoid Embarassment
Market Price
Vino
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123638925101858707.html
2nd cheapest bottle of wine has a high margin.
Increasing Conversion
Users Entering
Flow
- Increase Entry Points- Increase social outreach
- Make it dead simple- Hold their hand- Reward them
Users Completing
Flow
Introduce social learning throughout these flows to teach the user how to user the site
Get to & complete registration
• Registered users is a key metric for success• Once a user is registered:
– You have a way to reach out to them– You have some key demographics to target advertising
First Impressions
Goal 1: Get people to open the email- Optimize the sender- Optimize the subject
Subject Line Test Checklist
Theme Tests
Statement Type Declarative, Imperative, Interrogative
Sentence Tense Present, Past, Future
Persuasiveness Light vs. Heavy
Wildcards !! … ;)
Email ContentGoal 2: Get people to click on the email- Optimize the body (language, layout, images)- Optimize the call to action
Email Content
Email Content
Email Content
RegistrationGoal 3: Get the user to complete registration- Minimize user effort- Reduce Distraction
Registration
Relationships
Groups Attention
Contacts
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.
Contacts
Groups
Attention
Types of relationships
Groups
Attention
Connections
INVITE OPTIMIZATIONJennifer Ruffner
Identity
Activity Relationships
SocialSpace
Sign-
up
Invitations
Distribution (Viral)
Invitations
• Distribution of invitations increases the number of registrations
• Invitations often activate inactive users. Take advantage of this opportunity.
• People that are connected are more active
Goal 1: Get users sending invitations to get viral. Viral = 1 registration generates > 1 registration
Sending Invitations
Sending Invitations
Sending Invitations
Receiving InvitationsGoal 2: Use invitations to existing members to reactivate them.
Receiving Invitations
STRATEGIZEExercise 3: what kinds of relationships will you support?
Groups Attention
Contacts
Activity
Collaborate
Communicate
Share
The AOF Method
1. Defining your Activity2. Identifying your Social Objects3. Choosing your Features
Courtesy of Joshua Porter. Check out bokardo.com!
Classic Question • Who are your users?
Better Question• What are your users doing?
• What do people have to do to make you successful?• What are you making people better at?• What are your users passionate about?
2. IDENTIFYING YOURSOCIAL OBJECTS
The term “social networking” makes little sense if we leave out the objects that mediate the ties between people. Think about the object as the reason why people affiliate with each specific other and not just anyone.
Jyri Engeström
What are Social Objects?
• Social objects can be ideas, people, or physical objects.
• Social objects influence social interaction...they change the way people interact with each other.
• By interacting through/with social objects, people meet others they might not otherwise know.
• Social objects can be the reason why people have an interaction or form a relationship.
Joshua Porter (bokardo.com)
3. CHOOSING YOUR FEATURES
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
ConversationsInitiate
Comment
Rate and Report
Reply
Talking about talking
Sharing
In the spirit of sharing
#socialarchitecture@Cwodtke@JenG24
#ias10
Sharing is key
“How do you know which social sites are most popular? Aside from looking at the raw traffic numbers, a good indicator is data about which sites are seeing the most content shared on them.”
http://mashable.com/2009/07/20/facebook-sharing-data/
DM – JenG24 to Brent
DM – JenG24 to Google Guy
The fight for pie
User EmotionsDESIRES• I want to look smart or cool in
front of my network• I need to know who will hear
me• I want to know what to expect• It needs to be easy, easier than
email• I want to see immediate
gratification for taking action• I want to stay in touch with
people
FEARS• I don’t want to look stupid• I don’t want to make a
mistake• I don’t want to seem spammy• I feel like I’m speaking into
radio silence• I don’t know what to say• I don’t want to embarrass
myself or be 2nd to market
DM – JenG24 to Rachel
Ideals
• Reduce barriers to entry: widen the funnel of shared content
• Make the flow dead simple - everywhere• Hold the users hand throughout the process• Reward the sharer
Look Smart, not stupid• Preview the post• Awesome object
display• Never 2nd to market
• See your own update• Character count• Easy delete
I don’t want to spam my network
• Visible Visibility• Lots of contexts (topic pages, groups)
| found via Nate Johnson
I have nothing to say
• Share links• Reshare• Like• Structured forms• Comments can
be a gateway drug
People retweet links
What do they retweet?
Social is the new primary source
Rewards and Feedback• Stats• Mechanisms for
discovery• Immediate feedback• Lightweight
commenting
Metrics
ConsumersConsumersContributorsContributors
DM – JenG24 to Google Guy
Metrics
• Basic– Shares– Reshares– Likes/Recommendations– Comments– Uniques viewing– Uniques contributing– Time Spent– Page Views
• Tipping– Viewers Readers– Readers Likers– Likers Commenters– Commenters Resharers– Resharers Contributors
Collaborate
i.e. What are your nouns and verbs?
STRATEGIZE
Exercise 4: what are the social objects and what do people do?
Collab Comm
Share
Activity
SocialSpace
presenceSign-
upInvitations
Collab Comm
Share
Relationships
Groups Attention
Contacts
Identity
Presence
Reputation
Profile
Activity
Distribution (Viral)
Sign-
upInvitations
Viral Distribution
• Gladwell• Duncan watts
“There was the president of the Hush Puppies company, of Rockford, Michigan, population thirty-eight hundred, sharing a stage with Calvin Klein and Donna Karan and Isaac Mizrahi-and all because some kids in the East Village began combing through thrift shops for old Dukes. Fashion was at the mercy of those kids, whoever they were, and it was a wonderful thing if the kids picked you, but a scary thing, too, because it meant
that cool was something you could not control. You needed someone to find cool and tell you what it was.”
- Malcom Gladwell
Nobody knows anything. – William Goldman
B=f(P,E)Behavior is a function of a Person and his
Environment
Some Patterns
FRICTIONLESSI think, I blink
Are you sure?Really sure?Absolutely
sure?
Argh... Maybe
not
CLEARDon’t make me choose
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.
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
Whateevershare
Adaptive Path, using
“Share this”
widget
Pick your channels
Slideshare
New York Times
New youtube
MEASURABLE & OPTIMIZED
Viral Coefficient
Invite-based Viral Coef. =InputX # of InvitationsX Delivery RateX Open RateX Click RateX Sign UpsX New Invitations
AT HANDSee it, use it
• Table setting?
IMPACTFULMaximize reach
Email this
Consumer
Broadcaster
Newsfeed, Network Updates
Consumer
Consumer Consumer
Consumer
Consumer
Broadcaster
Groups, Asymmetric Follow
spark
Relationship antipatternsHigh-level antipatterns
• Explicit “Will you be my friend” requests• Teach a man to be phished (adactio)• Don’t break email (do-not-reply)• Auto-faux-pas (notification of rejection / unsub /
delinking / re-follow)• Having to spam my friends…
TARGETEDFeatures for the most useful users
OUTREACHSocial seo
<meta name="description" content="Find cheap airline tickets, hotels, great cruise and vacation packages, honeymoon travel guides, flight information and more, with Yahoo! Travel." /> <meta name="verify-v1" content="hfk2kPTdsyPJIULFv58St5zM/BKR4WjvWpVSbgr23vA=" /><meta name="y_key" content="17f2f671d47e7697" /><title>Yahoo! Travel - Airline tickets, cheap hotels, cruises, vacations & honeymoon travel</title>
Checklist
FrictionlessImpactfulTargetedOutreach
DISTRIBUTION EXERCISE
Think about how you will pull people in…How do people share?With whom do they share?Where and how many of those tools do you place?
ALIGNING METRICS & DESIGN
Basic Outline
• Determine which activities your business will support.
• Choose which metrics are most important to the health of your business.
• Determine which screens support 1) and 2)• Focus like hell on those screens, testing them
to make sure they work as well as you need them to.
Ev Williams - Founder of Blogger and Twitter
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.
Time on siteTime on siteUnique usersUnique users
DonationsDonations
# visitors + # signups+ # converstion + shared links = Donations# visitors + # signups+ # converstion + shared links = Donations
EMBRACE METRICS DRIVEN DESIGN
Loving the alien
Original
Highrise A/B testing
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1525-writing-decisions-headline-tests-on-the-highrise-signup-page
Can you guess which one worked best?
1st place
4th place
3rd place15% improvement
7% improvement
30% improvement
2nd place27% improvement
YOU CAN’T OPTIMIZE YOUR WAY TO INNOVATION
but
Questions?
Christina Wodtkehttp://www.blueprintsfortheweb.com
http://www.eleganthack.comhttp://www.boxesandarrows.com
@cwodtke
Jennifer [email protected]
@jeng24http://www.linkedin.com/in/jengranito
A SHORT HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
Cave
Hut
Stone Age City
VITRUVIUS
firmitas, utilitas, venustas : : durability, convenience, beauty
Durability
“Durability will be assured when foundations are carried down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected” Vitruvius
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel, Japan, survived an earthquakeThe 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.
Technical EarthquakesSlow 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”
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.
Prepare for
Technical Tremors Execution Maintenance Scale Bandwidth
Social Faultlines Innocents/Idiots Trolls Spammers Criminals
Convenience
“When the arrangement of the apartments is faultless and presents no hindrance to use, and when each class of building is assigned to its suitable and appropriate exposure” Vitruvius
Sound familiar? We’re talking
usability!
“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?
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.
Bilbao did not leak. I was so proud.
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
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
“Less is more.” ~ Mies
SEAGRAM BUILDING (Philip Johnson did interiors, 1957)
This logical and elegant 38-story skyscraper (525' H) has alternating horizontal bands of bronze plating and bronze-tinted glass and decorative bronze I-beams which emphasize its verticality. Placed to the rear of its site and set back from Park Avenue, it incorporates a large plaza in the front as part of the design--thus avoiding the need for set-backs. It uses granite pillars at the base and has a two-story glass-enclosed lobby.
Seagram Building
New York City
1957
Is this Beautiful?
“Less is a bore.” ~ Venturi
Is this Beautiful?
Do we dictate what is beautiful by constraining
user choice?
Or support passionate use that may not meet our
aesthetic standards?
Beautiful
ConvenientDurable
Site
Site
Julia Morgan
First Bay Tradition• Natural material
from site• Traditional Craft• Integrate in
surrounds• Each building a
unique work of art
Site=Context
Facebook- Personal LinkedIN - Professional
Humans don’t like empty spaces. Create starter objects – newsfeeds can be good.
‘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
Servant and Served Spaces
Services (settings, in this case) are
separated from served)
Services intergraded with served is easier to comprehend and
use
Centre Pompidou was designed with services revealed rather than hidden
Revealing things usually only available to employees, such as statistics can provide interest and beauty inherit to the product.
Views
Hey, it’s the Arc de
Triomphe!
Corbu’s surrealist apartment obscured views, rather than framed them to create interest
Views into people’s lives
Views into the service before
you sign up
Proportion
The Key Word is: Proportion. … Relative size, not over-all size, is the factor in determining guidelines which will satisfactorily influence attractive appearance.
Ad out of proportion to content
Ads reflect same sizes and shapes
used in design
Speed
25mph5 mph 60mph
Medieval architecture designed to be walked by, prairie houses to drive by slowly at suburban speeds, and the strip for freeway speeds
Speed
25mph 5 mph60mph
Consider speed of use in design; do not slow interface with details upon sign up, richer interface for where people linger and socialize
Movement
Gehry designed a static building to feel like it’s moving, inspired by dance
Why are our compositions so static? How should the eye move through this?
Games provide hints to new compositions, metaphors for information spaces
Gehry has been inspired recently by fish. What would a website be if it was a fish?
Twistori’s live stream of data reveals and intrigues. Do you need actual movement to engage?
“Modern Systems! Yes indeed! To approach everything in a strictly methodical manner and not to waver a hair’s breath from preconceived patterns, until genius has been strangled to death and joie de vivre stifled by the system– that is the sign of our time.” Camillo Sitte
BREAK
Reward/Healthy ecosystem
• Unique data• Instantaneous data• Healthy ecosystem
Other ideas
• Mechanical Turk• Core, Venture, Risk• AB testing• Default status
Overview
• Share what: ideas, events, breaking news, job opportunities, gossip, entertainment, pictures, videos, music, games
• Why: reputation building, knowledge proliferation, fodder for discussion & communication, way to reach out, stay in touch, acknowledgment, help each other
• With whom: friends & family, followers, current and former colleagues, work team, like minded- people, people in your field
• Where: email, in person, bookmarklets & badges, group distribution lists, blogs, twitter, social networks, aggregators (friendfeed), im, text, wiki/ intranet