HCI 2014 (6 of 10): Social (Web) Interactions

Master on Software Engineering :: Human-Computer Interaction
Dr. Sabin-Corneliu Buraga – www.purl.org/net/busaco
design patterns for social interactions
Human-Computer Interaction

“Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few;
friend to one; enemy to none.”
Benjamin Franklin

Patterns of human interaction
(Jenifer Tidwell, 2006)
describing human behaviors

Safe exploration
“Let me explore without getting lost
or getting into trouble.”
Human behavior

Instant gratification
“I want to accomplish something now, not later.”
Human behavior

Instant gratification
Human behavior

Satisfying
“This is good enough.
I don’t want to spend more time learning to do it better.”
Human behavior

Changes in midstream
“I changed my mind about what I was doing.”
Human behavior

Deferred choices
“I don’t want to answer that now; just let me finish.”
Human behavior

Incremental construction
“Let me change this. That doesn’t look right;
let me change it again. That’s better!”
Human behavior

Incremental construction
when a tool offers support for creative activities,
these could maintain the user’s flow
Human behavior

Habituation
“That gesture works everywhere else;
why doesn’t it work here, too?”
Human behavior

Spatial memory
“I swear that button was here a minute ago.
Where did it go?”
Human behavior

Prospective memory
“I’m putting this here to remind myself
to deal with it later.”
Human behavior

Streamlined repetition
“I have to repeat this how many times?”
Human behavior

Keyboard only
“Please don’t make me use the mouse!”
Human behavior

Other people’s advice
“What did everyone else say about this?”
Human behavior

social UX patterns

Social UX Patterns
dealing with the interactivity
within a social (Web) application
Christian Crumlish & Erin Malone, 2009

Social UX Patterns
social computing
Thomas Erickson (2013)
www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/social_computing.html

Self
Activities
Com-
munity
Crumlish & Malone, 2009
reputation
sharing
presence

social media ecosystem (Crumlish & Malone, 2009)

social aspects in the enterprise (Crumlish & Malone, 2009)

Design for Everyone
Talk Like a Person
Be Open
Be a Game
Check Your Ethics
Don’t Break E-mail!
Cargo Cult – antipattern
Social UX: Core Principles

Software as a human
communicating to users – and potential customers –
in a human voice

humane interfaces
Social UX

Social UX
Conversation
adopting a conversational tone
use the language of contemporary speech,
not that of textbooks, tax forms, or street signs

Social UX
Conversation
used for including instructions, errors,
and other messages coming from the system and
addressed to the reader, visitor, or member

???

Social UX
Conversation
avoid obscure slang unless you have already established
confidence in the minds of your users
being cute ≠ being real

Social UX
Ask questions
people naturally have questions and ask them

Social UX
Ask questions
could be used for explanatory messages, help text,
and labels on potential but currently unpopulated
features in the user’s interface

Social UX
Your versus My
labeling items with “My” imitates the user’s point of view
My Yahoo!, My feed, My watchlist
versus
“Your”-like labels reinforce the dialogue
CiteULike, YouTube

Social UX
Your versus My
use this pattern when labeling objects belonging to
or chosen by the individual user
your photostream, your contacts, your groups,…

Social UX
No joking around
people appreciate humor and ice-breaking witticisms,
but unserious text in an UI could be confusing
(the sense of humor is a unique thing in each person)

Social UX
No joking around
software is not joking
let your users tell each other their own jokes

Social UX
Honesty of interaction
dark pattern = a type of user interface that appears
to have been carefully crafted to trick users
into doing unwanted things

http://darkpatterns.org/

Representing the Self
engagement
identity
presence
reputation
Social UX

User engagement
questions:
how to avoid the cold-start?
how to encourage people to come in and participate?
how to avoid privacy problems?
how to encourage early adopters?
…
Social UX

www.drawnimal.com
help kids start drawing & learn the alphabet
discussion

User engagement
advice:
“keep the user’s experience focused on the application”
(Bert Appward, 2012)
www.html5rocks.com/webappfieldguide/
Social UX

Social UX
Sign-up and registration
use the pattern when:
require leaving personal or private information,
and privacy and security are a concern

Social UX
use the pattern when:
financial transactions require remembering billing,
shipping, and transaction information

Social UX
collect the bare minimum of information needed
that still allows your user to participate in the site
consider whether or not registration is even needed

Social UX
provide explanations about what each piece of
information requested will provide
in terms of user benefits
e.g., geo-location provides recommendations
of relevant items: stores, hospitals,…

Social UX
the application will require registration
at the last possible moment
in the users’ process of exploring the site

Social UX
after registration, deliver the users back to the task
they were in before they were sidetracked

Social UX
allow the creation of a unique identifier by allowing
the use of an e-mail address,
which is a unique piece of data and can be verified

Social UX
clearly label what elements are required
for a username and password

Social UX
provide (positive) feedback as the user fills out the form

Social UX
include CAPTCHA-based verification
only if absolutely necessary
???

Social UX
consider skipping the entire registration form
and allow users to sign up by using other methods
open standards: OpenID, OAuth, WebID
initiative: Mozilla Persona – www.mozilla.org/persona/

Social UX
see also:
Luke Wroblewski, “Sign Up Forms Must Die”,
A List Apart Magazine, 2008
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/signupforms/

discussion
good or bad design?

Social UX
remark:
the Web form should easily navigable via the keyboard,
with the Submit button triggered by the Enter key

Social UX
Sign-in
we must provide a clearly labeled Sign In/Login button

Social UX
Sign-in
we must present input fields
for the username & password
+
a clear way to retrieve the username/password
if it is forgotten

Social UX

Social UX
Sign-in
if appropriate, allow the user to stay signed in to the site
for an extended amount of time

Social UX
Sign-in
delay the sign-in requirement
until the last possible moment

Social UX
Authorize
this pattern could be used when:
features are enhanced or expanded by accessing data
and files from another site

Social UX
Authorize
this pattern could be used when:
user-generated content or data on a given site has
the potential to enhance/enable other sites

???!

Social UX
Authorize
using an authorization flow and protocol (e.g., OAuth)
allows users to give access among sites
without exposing their usernames and passwords

Social UX
Welcome area
provides the new user with a welcome message
it could present the most important or useful features

Social UX
Welcome area
do not use intrusive methods – e.g., pop-ups
do not force users to take welcome tours
assume the new users are not stupid

User identity
“The ability to create and manage an identity within the
context of the site is the foundation upon which the rest
– contributions, relationships, reputations – is built.
It’s about people and who they portray themselves to be.”
Social UX

User identity
tripartite identity pattern
account unique identifier DB key
login identifier session authentication
public identifier(s) social identify
Social UX

Social UX
User profile
profile = the “face” of the user in the system
conveying a central, public location to display all
the relevant content and information about a user
to be exposed to others

Social UX
User profile
don’t make the display name the same as the user login
an important aspect concerning security: phishers

Social UX
User profile
allow users to control the levels of access to information
private versus “friends” versus public

Social UX
User profile
users must have the possibility to customize their profile

Social UX
User profile
collect only the amount of information necessary
for meaningful relationships or community activities

Social UX
User profile
if possible, allow the user to migrate profile content,
a profile image, nickname, and core personal information
from other services using certain methods
e.g., Data Liberation, OpenSocial API,
Portable Contacts, Yahoo! Social Platform

Social UX
other features (issues to be resolved):
profile decorating
profile claiming
faceted identity

Social UX
Personal dashboard
users want to check in and see status updates from
their friends, current activity from their social graph,
comments from friends on recent posts, etc.

Social UX
Personal dashboard
the personal dashboard is the companion to the profile
should contain information and access to activities
that the user wants to participate in on an ongoing basis
to encourage repeat usage

for strategies and examples, see
S. Few, Information Dashboard Design: Displaying Data
for At-a-Glance Monitoring, Analytics Press, 2013

Social UX
Identity/Contact cards
used to offer additional information about a user,
allowing the possibility to subscribe to, follow,
connect to, unsubscribe, block the user

Social UX
Avatars
giving a visual representation for an online identify
“Profile pictures – or avatars, in online parlance –
show people at our thinnest, handsomest, most fun.”
(Gillian Reagan, 2008)

Social UX
Avatars
illustrated representations allow for a degree of
anonymity, but do reduce the perceived credibility
of the poster in many cases

Social UX
Avatars
the users must have the possibility to use multiple avatars
consider allowing multiple images to be uploaded
and stored for later selection

Social UX
Avatars
mood expressions
allow users to attach a special status message or emoticon
to supplement their avatars by indicating
a particular mood – e.g., delighted, bored,…

Online presence
designing a presence UI is to maximize opportunities
for users to declare themselves present to one another
Social UX

Online presence
online presence management:
publish, display, maintain (update), subscribe to, filter,…
Social UX

Online presence
facets of presence:
status, current task, mood, environment, location,
platform/device status, others
Social UX

Online presence
common patterns:
Availability
Buddy List
Microblogging
Updates
Social UX

User reputation
a person participating in a social structure expects
to develop a reputation and hopes for insight into
the reputations of others
Social UX

User reputation
reputation influences behavior
a reputation system involves tracking desirable behavior
and then recognizing it publicly
Social UX

User reputation
reputation influences behavior
a reputation system involves tracking desirable behavior
and then recognizing it publicly
examples: Klout, Mozilla OpenBadges
Social UX

Social UX
Named levels
define a family of reputations on a progressive continuum
to enable consumers to discover and identify
high-quality contributors
BronzeSilverGold
Hated HostileUnfriendlyNeutralFriendly…

Social UX
Labels
use “special identifiers” to gratify a person
allows non-linear reputation designations

Social UX
Labels
examples:
Top Contributor (Yahoo! Answers)
Troll (37 Signals)
see also Art of Trolling:
http://artoftrolling.memebase.com/

User reputation
could be measured via awards:
Collectible achievements,
Peer-to-peer achievements, Nudging,
Testimonials (Personal recommendations)
examples: LinkedIn, P2PU, Xbox LIVE, Yelp, etc.
Social UX

User reputation
could be measured via rankings:
Points
Leaderboard
Top N
Social UX

User reputation
many leaderboards make the mistake of basing standings
only on what is easy to measure
it is difficult to measure qualitative aspects
Leaderboard could be also considered as an anti-pattern
Social UX

Social objects
“Social networks consist of people
who are connected by a shared object.”
Jyri Engeström
Social UX

Social objects
“You can have a conversation without a social object.
You cannot have a social object without a conversation.
It is the conversation that makes the object ‘social’.”
JP Rangaswami
Social UX

Social objects
collecting social objects:
Saving, Favorites,
Displaying,
Add/Subscribe,
Tagging, Find with tags, Tag cloud
Social UX

Social objects
sharing & (re)using:
personal level – Bookmarklet, Send/Share widget
private (direct) level – Send this, Give Gift
public level – Share this, Embedding
Social UX

Broadcasting
from tribal gossip to viral actions
“The key is to design flexible frameworks and spaces
for people to define their own sense of place.”
Social UX

Broadcasting
design patterns concerning blogs:
Blogs: presentation
Blogs: ownership
Microblogging
Social UX

Social UX
Terms of service
the “Terms of Service Agreement” document provides
a legal framework for the use and dissemination
of “information services” and intellectual property assets
provided on a Website

Social UX
Terms of service
use this pattern in check-out flows and sign-up forms

Social UX
Terms of service
types of open licenses:
Public Domain
http://publicdomainmanifesto.org/
Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Copyleft
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/

Feedback
soliciting feedback from people, no matter the form,
is one of the easiest ways to engage a community
Social UX

Feedback
important design (anti)patterns:
Vote to promote
Thumbs up/down ratings
Ratings (Starts or 1—5)
Comments
Reviews
Soliciting feedback
Social UX

Collaboration
important design patterns:
Manage project
Voting (Polls, Surveys)
Collaborative editing
Edit this page
Wiki way
Crowdsourcing
Social UX

Social media tools
must offer support for filtering & recommending
resources of interest
Social UX

Social UX
Filtering
used to offer methods for social filtering
in order to minimize information overload

Social UX
Filtering
we must provide affordances for restoring
(or, if necessary, imposing) contextual filters
on data streams so that they can be parsed
in more manageable groupings

Social UX
Recommendations
offering (“intelligent”) recommendations when sufficient
self-declared data about users is available to be able
to identify similarities and make helpful guesses
about likely interesting content

Social UX
Recommendations
several public APIs focused on (social) recommendations:
Apache Mahout – http://mahout.apache.org/
Amazon Mechanical Turk – http://www.mturk.com/
Hunch – http://hunch.com/developers/
Zemanta – http://developer.zemanta.com/
www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory/1?apicat=Recommendations

recommendations push objects toward people
rather than relying on them to be passively discovered

Social search
Real-time search
Conversational (Subjective) search
for details, read P. Morville & J. Callender,
Search Patterns, O’Reilly, 2010
http://searchpatterns.org/library.php
Social UX

discussion
Facebook Graph Search
www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch
critics concerning the user privacy:
http://actualfacebookgraphsearches.tumblr.com/

Relationships
the ability to find friends and make them a part of user
circle for participation is one of the key interactions
to design when building a social application
Social UX

Relationships
the ability to find friends and make them a part of user
circle for participation is one of the key interactions
to design when building a social application
terminology:
cohort, colleague, contact, family, fan,
follow, follower, friend
Social UX

Relationships
important design patterns:
Find people
Adding friends
Circles of connections
Publicize Relationships
Unfriending
Groups
Social UX

Community management
norms
expected behaviors when operating or working
with a system
Social UX

norms
socially enforced
less restrictive than rules
Social UX

norms
explicit – e.g., FAQs, user agreements
versus
implicit – not formally available,
emerging through daily interactions of the group
Social UX

necessity of publishing a clear and easy to find
set of guidelines
Social UX

collaborative governance + group moderation:
Collaborative filtering
Report abuse
Social UX

Participation to events
support for activities on user real location:
Being local
Social UX

Social UX
Face-to-face meeting
helps to facilitate face-to-face meetings between people

Social UX
pre-event creation
users could enter full details of a (private/public) event:
location, time, description, special considerations,…
a sharable calendar must be integrated

Social UX
pre-event creation
locations could be selected from an existing list
consider indicating nearby establishments
(parking, restaurants, ATMs,…),
which allows for comprehensive planning

Social UX
pre-event creation
provide full address, contact possibilities
+ other relevant details: costs, restrictions, ambiance

Social UX
pre-event creation
users could RSVP to events +
consider showing RVSPs to other users
allow users to easily invite
their (subset of) network of friends

Social UX
during a public event
allow users to make comments in real-time
e.g., integrating social Web (mobile) applications

Social UX
post-event
offer tools to attach photos, presentations,
other resources to the event

Social UX
post-event
if the user attended (or RSVP’d “yes”),
show the event in his/her calendar of past events
consider asking the attendees to rate the event afterward

Social UX
post-event
for public events, allow users to tag/search/filter
the information of interest

planning an event and inviting friends to join the party:
Party
allow users to create customized and personal invitations
Social UX

finding or submitting an event (public or private)
based on a date or within a certain date range:
Calendaring
Social UX

alerting others where an event is happening:
Reminding
encourage sending reminders to a mobile device
or email account
Social UX

Geo-tagging
Geo-mapping
Geo-mashing: Neighborhood, Mobile & location
Best Practices and Guidelines for Location Based Services:
http://www.ctia.org/content/index.cfm/AID/11300
Social UX

Openness
important aspects:
open source, open infrastructure,
open architecture, open standards,
open access, open content (data), open identity
Social UX

Openness
Badging
packaging up frequently personalized information
in a portable format for reusing in other context
Social UX

Openness
also, to be considered:
Embedded semantics
(microformats, schema.org HTML5 microdata, RDFa)
Import, Hosted Modules, Open APIs
Social UX

Problem:
converting a classical Website into a “social” one
case study

Problem:
converting a classical Website into a “social” one
possible solutions:
talk like a person
sign in/sign up
object-related activities: tagging, rating, sharing
user identity: contact cards, attribution
relationships: friends, followers, social graphs
case study

Problem:
“people come and read my content,
but they’re invisible to each other…”
case study

Problem:
“people come and read my content,
but they’re invisible to each other…”
solution:
providing layers of participation
presence indicators, peer-to-peer awards, nudging,
public conversation, followers badge
case study

Problem:
“I have an active community on my Website,
but people are misbehaving!”
case study

Problem:
“I have an active community on my Website,
but people are misbehaving!”
solutions:
norm + model citizen
community management – e.g., reporting abuse
reputation
ratings
case study

Problem:
interacting via mobile devices
case study

Problem:
interacting via mobile devices
solutions:
geo-location
gatherings
current status broadcasting
general mobile patterns: infinite lists, one-click
gesture-based interaction
case study
responsive
design

case study
mobile & location patterns

case study
status broadcasting (statuscasting)

for more details, consult C. Crumlish & E. Malone,
Designing Social Interfaces, O’Reilly, 2009
www.designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns.wiki

“Conclusion”
designing social applications

next episode: project assessment (D)
Tuesday, 08 April, 9h – C308

HCI 2014 (6 of 10): Social (Web) Interactions

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