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CHAPTER 9 Social Applications
286
CLEARLY INDICATE HOW USERS CAN REACH THE NEXT LEVEL
When using reputation levels, make it easy for users to determine how they can
reach the next level. This keeps them interested and motivated to participate
( Figure 9.38 ).
CONSIDER INCORPORATING PEER RECOMMENDATIONS
In the reputation systems discussed so far, users indirectly earn a reputation
based on the swiftness of transactions, quality of the products delivered, useful-
ness of advice, and so forth. Many social networking applications, on the other
hand, allow users to establish reputations through testimonials or recommen-
dations that they receive. LinkedIn, for example, allows users to write recom-
mendations for others. Users who get recommendations receive a thumbs-up
icon on their profi les and an indication of how many people have recom-
mended them.
FIGURE 9.37
Kwanzoo, an
entertainment
trivia site, shows
top players ’ ranks
and points in a
leaderboard format.
It also shows whether
a user moved up or
down and by how
much.
FIGURE 9.38
Yahoo! Answers shows users how many points they have accumulated and the
number of points that they need to get to the next level.
287
Although it could be argued that peer recommendations are based on past
interactions, transactions, or services provided, and there are other similar
forms of reputation systems, an important difference is that the recommenda-
tion action is phrased more directly toward the person rather than the services
offered or products sold by him or her — that is, “ recommend this person, ”
instead of “ recommend services offered by this person. ”
Related design patterns
Both RATINGS and REVIEWS patterns may accompany REPUTATION because
gaining reputation requires users to rate and review the transactions or activi-
ties they are involved with.
DISCOVER NETWORK MEMBERS
Problem
Users new to a social application may not know how to connect with others
with similar interests or with whom they have lost touch. In addition, users
who are part of other community-based applications may want to fi nd out if
anyone on their current “ friends ” list is already a member of the community
they are joining.
Solution
Make it easy for users to discover network members based on common inter-
ests, past workplaces, other online communities, and contacts (i.e., email
address books) ( Figure 9.39 ). In addition, recommend friends based on users ’
profi les and stated interests to make it easy for users to fi nd new “ friends. ”
Why
Social networking or community-based applications revolve around connecting
users with current, past, and potentially future friends and colleagues. Without
an easy way to connect with them, the community aspect of the application
disappears.
How
Social networking applications can help users discover friends in a myriad
of ways: by email address books, instant messenger (IM) buddy lists, users ’
existing networks, recommendations, and searches. Having multiple ways to
discover connections is important, since users may not have fi lled out their
profi les completely and may use email addresses differently than those in their
address books.
ALLOW DISCOVERY OF FRIENDS BY EMAIL ADDRESS BOOKS
Enable users to import their existing address books from popular email appli-
cations such as Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and so forth ( Figure 9.40 ).
Discover Network Members
CHAPTER 9 Social Applications
288
Offer this as an option after users have signed up; it helps in the following ways:
1. To facilitate quick sign-up, users typically provide (or are asked to pro-
vide) very minimal information about themselves. This makes it diffi cult
to connect them with people they already know in the community. By
not getting a sense of community after signing up, users may question
the usefulness of the application and may not return.
2. A
ccessing users ’ email address books is relatively straightforward once they
have provided login credentials, which makes it easy for the application to
help them fi nd and connect with those already in their contact lists.
FIGURE 9.39
Facebook offers users several options to fi nd friends: by email (uploading of
contact fi les too); by schools, colleges, and work locations; and by IM buddy lists. The site also
offers recommendations via “ Discover People You May Know ” based on profi les and current
network.
FIGURE 9.40
When signing up, Yelp offers users an option to fi nd existing friends by matching
their contact lists on email systems such as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, and Gmail.
289
ALLOW DISCOVERY OF FRIENDS BASED ON USERS ’ PROFILES
Another option is to allow users to discover friends based on their profi les.
Once users have completed at least part of their profi les with information
about their workplace or educational institutions, inform them about users
who match their information ( Figure 9.41 ).
ALLOW DISCOVERY OF FRIENDS BASED ON EXISTING CONNECTIONS
Allow users to explore their friends ’ profi les and view friends ’ friends to make
it possible for them to discover common friends they didn’t know were part of
the community. In addition, rather than making users actively browse friends ’
profi les to discover common friends, the application can periodically suggest
friends from users ’ connections who they may know.
ALLOW USERS TO SEARCH OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS
Allow users to search for people ( Figure 9.42 ) in addition to allowing them to
discover members based on their profi les, address books, and buddy lists (see
SAMPLE SEARCH and PARAMETRIC SEARCH in Chapter 6).
REQUIRE CONFIRMATION OF “ FRIEND ” REQUESTS
While it’s easy to fi nd network members with whom users may want to con-
nect (i.e., a “ friend ” ), it should not be an automatic process. It’s important that
requests to “ friend ” someone are acknowledged and confi rmed before adding
them to their friend lists. In addition, when accepting a request to become a
friend, it helps to ask them to indicate the nature of their relationship. This
information can be used to update profi les (and make them more complete)
and further discover network members with whom users can connect.
SUPPORT THIRD-PARTY INTRODUCTIONS
Users may want to “ friend ” with users they do not know. Although users
should be permitted to send direct requests to add them to their network, if
there’s a mutual friend that both users know, allow them to be introduced. This
may help reduce hesitation on the part of both users in becoming friends.
ALLOW USERS TO “ FOLLOW ” OTHERS
Offer another recently popular “ friending ” approach called “ following, ” where
users can visit other users ’ profi le pages and choose to “ follow ” their activities
(or “ status ” in Twitter’s case) ( Figure 9.43 ).
Discover Network Members
FIGURE 9.41
Using past organizations and educational institutions in users ’ profi les, LinkedIn
offers options to discover friends.
CHAPTER 9 Social Applications
290
Related design patterns
As users add friends to their networks and indicate their relationship to their
friends, it offers a good opportunity for the application to update their USER
PROFILES. In addition, it is important to offer mechanisms for users to grow
(a)
FIGURE 9.42
LinkedIn offers users several options to search their membership list (a). They
also offer a reference search for fi nding people in one’s network who may be able to provide
references for a candidate (b).
(b)
FIGURE 9.43
Twitter allows users to follow other users; “ followed ” users ’ activities are then
shown as updates on the “ followers’ ” pages.
291
their network, because the size of the network is an important factor that con-
tributes to their REPUTATION.
FRIEND LIST
Problem
Users are likely to communicate with the same core group of people — friends,
colleagues, family, and acquaintances. Requiring them to remember their infor-
mation every time they want to contact someone would make the interaction
ineffi cient.
Solution
Allow users to create and maintain a friend list ( Figure 9.44 ); friend list is also
referred to as a “ buddy list. ” In addition, allow users to group their friends to
make it easier to fi nd them and communicate as a group.
Why
A friend list is similar to an address book and enables users to fi nd their friends
and their profi le information quickly. In addition, like address books, many
users of social networking applications have tens to hundreds of friends. If pre-
sented just as a simple list or paginated list, fi nding friends can become diffi cult.
Therefore, it’s important for users to be able to group their friends based on their
relationship, how frequently they interact, how they were introduced, and so on.
In essence, this helps users maintain, if they so desire, an accurate “ social graph ”
of their friend list. Furthermore, this feature also allows them to tailor their pri-
vacy controls and send messages to them as a group instead of individually.
How
Update users ’ friend lists whenever they accept a request to become a friend or
when their request to “ friend ” someone is accepted.
Friend List
FIGURE 9.44
MySpace allows users to view and manage their friend lists on the My
Friends page. In addition, it allows users to group friends into separate categories. They can
also indicate privacy settings in terms of who can view the categories they create.
CHAPTER 9 Social Applications
292
ALLOW USERS TO GROUP THEIR FRIENDS
Users may want to group their friends to make fi nding them easier — for exam-
ple, they may want to group them based on the nature of their relationship or
on the frequency of their interaction with them. To afford maximum fl exibil-
ity on how they want to organize their friends, allow them to create their own
groups. If users have created groups, make assigning friends to a group part of
the accept (or “ request to add ” ) process ( Figure 9.45 ).
MAKE THE FRIEND LIST EASILY ACCESSIBLE
Among the common reasons users visit social applications is to interact with
their friends or see their status and history. To enable quick access to such
information, make it easy for them to access their friend list. Most social appli-
cations allow users to see a list of friends on their home pages.
ALLOW USERS TO VIEW THEIR FRIENDS ’ ONLINE STATUS
An important reason to maintain a friend list is to enable messaging between
friends (both synchronously and asynchronously). To initiate synchronous mes-
saging (i.e., chats), it’s important to know if a friend is online ( Figure 9.46 ; see
the MESSAGING and PRESENCE INDICATOR patterns later in this chapter).
Related design patterns
To promote communication with friends, both the MESSAGING and
PRESENCE INDICATOR patterns usually accompany FRIEND LIST. In addi-
tion, to make it easy to fi nd people, a friend list is often shown as an IMAGE
GRID (see Chapter 7).
FIGURE 9.45
Orkut allows users to group their friends into different categories. By default,
they offer the groups “ best friends, ” “ family, ” “ school, ” and “ work ” ; users can also create
their own groups and put the same friend in more than one group.
293
GROUPS AND SPECIAL-INTEREST COMMUNITIES
Problem
Users need a way to connect with those with similar interests and experiences
so that they can learn, share their knowledge and opinions, build relationships,
grow professionally, grow their networks, and so forth.
Solution
Allow users to join and create groups, also referred to as forums or online
communities ( Figure 9.47 ).
Why
One of the reasons users participate in community-based applications is to
connect with those who share similar interests and experiences. Enabling users
to create groups and connect with others is therefore essential because it con-
tributes to a sense of community and encourages participation. For companies,
forums and communities are also useful for customer support because they
allow customers to help each other and, in the process, reduce support costs.
Groups and Special-Interest Communities
(a)
FIGURE 9.46
MySpace allows users to fi lter their friend list by who is online (a). Gmail, on the
other hand, shows a green bullet in front of online users (b).
(b)
FIGURE 9.47
LearnHub, a site that supports educational communities, allows users to join
existing ones or to start their own community.
CHAPTER 9 Social Applications
294
How
Groups or online communities are virtual places where users with like interests
can share and connect with each other. Therefore, a community can be in the
form of discussion groups around a topic (e.g., Usenet); groups created within
a social networking application (e.g., Facebook); discussions around social
objects such as photos, music, movies, books, and so forth (e.g., YouTube,
Flickr); comments in response to a blog entry (e.g., blogger); or communities
created by companies to support their customers (e.g., Dell Support Forums).
Groups can be derived dynamically by using shared tags ( Figure 9.48 ), or users
can create them explicitly based on their specifi c interests ( Figure 9.49 ). Creating
groups dynamically is a good way to discover people who share common inter-
ests. However, such implicitly created groups may not be sustainable because users
have not chosen to be part of that group. Explicitly formed groups, on the other
hand, require users to join them and may have better chances of surviving.
Groups may also be created around specifi c events by people attending, or
those wishing to attend, an event. Events are just a type of group with location
FIGURE 9.48
43 Things creates groups dynamically based on tags.
FIGURE 9.49
Facebook allows
users to create their
own groups.
295
and dates. A good example is SlideShare ( www.slideshare.net ), where users can
create event-based groups. The advantage of event-based groups is that they can
allow users to join groups for specifi c dates and locations.
ALLOW USERS TO MAKE GROUPS PUBLIC OR PRIVATE
Groups created by users can be either public or private ( Figure 9.50 ). Public
groups are helpful for general-interest subjects, such as cooking, hiking, poli-
tics, and so forth, that are likely to invite participation from many users. These
public groups may spawn more specialized subcommunities as their users ’
interests demand. Private groups are typically created by users who have very
specifi c goals or are dealing with topics that are sensitive in nature.
Public groups can be joined by anyone and may or may not require acceptance
by the creator of the group. Private groups, on the other hand, are restricted to
those invited by the creator of the group. Joining public groups is usually as
easy as clicking “ Join this group ” and confi rming the intent.
ENCOURAGE USERS TO JOIN AND PARTICIPATE
Users generally prefer to join groups or communities that are active. Therefore,
it is important to show indicators of group activity such as number of users,
number of posts, number of replies, recency of posts, and so forth ( Figure 9.51 ).
It also helps to show a gallery of active group users. This may be done by show-
ing users ’ avatars as part of the discussion and/or showing a gallery of new or
active community members.
SHOW USERS THEIR FRIENDS ’ GROUPS
Because users share some commonality with their friends, they are more likely
to join the groups to which their friends also belong. Therefore, it’s important
for users to see the groups their friends have joined.
Groups and Special-Interest Communities
FIGURE 9.50
Facebook categorizes groups into open, closed, and secret groups. Open groups
are public groups, secret groups are private groups, and closed groups are semipublic, since
they require approval of the group administrator to join.
[...]... interface among Extensible Design language-specific instances of the application Furthermore, by making web applications locale-independent and culture-neutral, extensible design avoids design elements that may be misinterpreted or offensive to other cultures An extensible design also helps make web applications more accessible to people with disabilities For example, by designing the application such that... specifically del Galdo et al (1996), Aykin (2004, 2006), Yunkers (2002), and Ishida (2008) EXTENSIBLE DESIGN Problem Although web applications are designed primarily for users in a region and for a language, designers may want to make them available in other regions and languages in the future Solution Designweb applications so that they do not favor any particular language or country and, when localized,... and link web pages using a very simple markup method; more recently, wikis have provided rich-text editing capabilities as well CHAPTER 10 Internationalization 311 INTRODUCTION Web applications designed for global audiences need to address two important issues in their design: internationalization and localization (Aykin, 2000):1 ■ ■ Internationalization (I18N)2 is the process of designing an application. .. unique number (e.g., A is mapped to 65 in ASCII3 encoding format) It helps web browsers determine the characters to display on a web page Selecting the character-encoding method, therefore, determines the languages a webapplication may be able to support Appropriate selection is also important for web applications that are designed to support users who may prefer languages other than English for inputting... internationalization helps incorporate necessary flexibility and adaptability in web applications during the initial design (and not just during localization) and requires paying attention to cultural norms and preferences, color choices, image appropriateness, and so forth (EXTENSIBLE DESIGN) In addition to designing for extensibility, designers must ensure that formats used for dates (DATE FORMAT), times (TIME... on their applications through sites such as Digg, Facebook, Delicious, and so forth (Figure 9.63) 303 304 CHAPTER 9 Social Applications FIGURE 9.63 SlideShare allows users to share a presentation to a variety of web applications SET UP PERMALINKS Permalinks are permanent URLs for web content and make it easy to link to a specific blog or forum post Content that may move from its current location (e.g.,... (see the Geolocation sidebar) Once applications are localized, it’s important for users to be easily able to navigate to desired local applications (GLOBAL GATEWAY) and/or change the language while interacting with an application (LANGUAGE SELECTOR) 1 A related term is globalization (sometimes abbreviated as G11N), which refers to the process of preparing both the application and the business for international... for date, time, number, and currency by default, many applications use the geolocation approach Geolocation refers to identifying the geographic location of the computer on the Internet Knowing the geographic location of the computer, and thus the location of its user, web applications can direct users to an appropriate region-specific version of the application For example, users from India typing www.google.com... 310 CHAPTER 9 Social Applications wikis,4 where pages can be added, edited, or deleted by any of the participants Most wikis, therefore, allow users to roll back the pages to previous versions Related design patterns The first step in COLLABORATION is SHARING documents or other artifacts; in addition, to facilitate collaboration, MESSAGING among users is essential 4 A wiki is a webapplication that allows... or content, except for translation This requires identifying and separating country- and language-specific application elements and its user interface and ensuring that none of the localizable elements are “hard-coded” in it Why EXTENSIBLE DESIGN is the core of internationalization It prepares web applications for localization and eliminates the need to create country- or language-specific versions By . easier
through third-party applications as well. Many applications and content sites
now allow users to promote content on their applications through sites. LinkedIn
offers options to discover friends.
CHAPTER 9 Social Applications
290
Related design patterns
As users add friends to their networks and indicate