Interactions - September/October 2010

Remember that you, as a design-er/developer, are operating in secondary mode, even if only some of the time. Most people are operating in primary mode most of the time. Given that your intuitions are likely wrong we need to conduct well-grounded evaluation and have an experimental mindset. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Broaden your ideas about evaluation. This is more than a numbers game. You don’t understand social by only looking at your social network, try to understand what else your users are using. Research papers usually report data sets from one social site. Only comparative studies and studies that look at behavior across sites can give a picture of people’s actual social patterns. Grand “implications” about human sociality based on data from one social site are overblown and should be taken with a pinch of salt. Start with the assumption that you are being biased and myopic, and from there drill into the data to see what you might be missing. And then go and collect more data from elsewhere.

3. Understand your constituen-
cies. People operate in groups
and communities. I find the word
“community” to be almost as
nebulous as the word “network.”
But, that being said, at least we
have some idea of what draws
people together in a commu-
nity—that is, why they may be
there. We talk about communi-
ties of circumstance, communi-
ties of interest,and communities
of practice; all of these describe
different factors that may draw
people to one another and differ-
ent needs that are perhaps being
met. Thus, we can think about
how these constituencies may
have different needs and design
features that may only be used
by a few but have high value in
that they deepen possibilities for
collaborative engagement. So, fol-
lowing Grudin’s point, don’t only
support features that are most
trafficked. Give some thought to
seldom used but highly valued.

[ 2] Grudin, J. “Groupware and Social Dynamics: Eight Challenges for Developers.” Communications of the ACM 37, 1 (1994): 92–105.

AbOut the AuthOr Elizabeth Churchill is a principal research scientist at Yahoo! Research leading research in social media. Originally a psychologist by training, for the past 15 years she has studied and designed technologies for effective social connection. At Yahoo, her work focuses on how Internet applications and services are woven into everyday lives. Obsessed with memory and sentiment, in her spare time Churchill researches how people manage their digital and physical archives. She rates herself a packrat, her greatest joy is an attic stuffed with memorabilia.