Xianhang "Hang" Zhang at BayCHI on November 9, 2010: Social Experience Design

1. Lessons from Social Software:
From Facebook to a Face to Face Design Guild
Xianhang Zhang - BayCHI

2. A Tale of Two Bridges
Grange Bridge, Cumbria Bloukrans Bridge, South Africa
1675 1984

3. Pre-scientific
• Built through trial & error
• Frequent failure
• Lack of generalizable
learning
• Rules of thumb knowledge
Grange Bridge, Cumbria
1675
• Knowledge only gained via
experience

4. Scientific
• Built using theory &
methodology
• Predictable results
• Accumulation of learning
• Abstracted knowledge
Bloukrans Bridge, South Africa
1984 • Taught via instruction

5. My Background
• BSc Computer Science (University of New South Wales)
•
• HCI work with Tabletop Computing (University of Sydney)

6. Interaction Design
• User Centered Design
• Usability Testing
• Personas & Use Cases
• Mental Models
• Fitts’ Law & GOMS
• etc...

7. My Background
• BSc Computer Science (University of New South Wales)
•
• HCI work with Tabletop Computing (University of Sydney)
• PhD Candidate (University of Washington)...

9. Flame wars are not surprising; they are one
of the most reliable features of mailing list
practice. If you assume a piece of software is
for what it does, rather than what its
designer's goals were, then mailing list
software is a tool for creating and sustaining
heated argument...

10. You couldn't go through the code of Mailman
and find the comment that reads "The next
subroutine ensures that misunderstandings
between users will be amplified, leading to
name-calling and vitriol." Yet the software
will frequently produce just that outcome...

11. In thirty years, the principal engineering
work on mailing lists has been on the
administrative experience. Mailman now
offers administrator nearly a hundred
configurable options, many with multiple
choices. However, the social experience of a
mailing list over those three decades has
hardly changed at all...

12. Is it considered rude to "ignore" a friend request?
Is it considered rude to un-friend a facebook
friend? What if its someone you never actually
speak to? And wish you had never friended? But
you don't want to seem like an asshole? Will
everyone assume that there was some "issue" or
fight between us?
What about work related "friends," like a boss or
someone you want to maintain good relations with
but don't want seeing your party pictures?
Is the point of facebook to acquire the most
friends? Is there a secret prize for accomplishing
this?

13. What is Social Experience Design?
• Designing the Social Interactions around a product/service
• A distinct & separate field from Interaction Design
• Designing for nuance, politeness, ambiguity, identity &
privacy
• Does not require an interactive technology
• An example...

14. Group Discussion Protocol
• Standard: First-in-First-out

15. Group Discussion Protocol
• Better: Raised Finger & Raised Hand

16. My Background
•
• HCI work with Tabletop Computing (University of Sydney)
• PhD Candidate (University of Washington)
• Bumblebee Labs (Founder)
• Peel (Social Experience Designer)
• Product Design Guild (Founder)

17. Social Experience Design
• Built through trial & error
• Frequent failure
• Lack of generalizable
learning
• Rules of thumb knowledge
• Knowledge only gained via
experience

18. Social Experience Design

19. Social Experience Design Primer
1. Sociotechnical Systems
2. Social Affordances
3. Plazas & Warrens

21. • Rapid increase in demand for designers
• Design education isn’t reflecting skills SV employers want
• Technology teams now 3 - 5 engineers & 1 designer
• Mentorship is a losing economic proposition

22. I think this is where guilds come in. Today, we often
equate guilds with unions and organizing to establish and
protect workers' rights.
But, one of the original functions of guilds was to
establish a path of mastery that was orthogonal to the
workplace, since it was unlikely that you had a chance to
work with other craftsmen on a daily basis.

23. Mission: To enable the creation of more &
better designers by providing a path of
mastery that is orthogonal to the workplace

24. Pilot #1
• 30 designers
• Bringing real work in order to engage in collaborative design
• Noon - 6pm
• Largely free-form collaboration

25. Rules
• You need to bring work: This is a place for work to be
done. There is no room for tourists
• Give before you receive: We want this to be a community
for contribution, not a resource for exploitation
• Be articulate about what you can offer: We are looking
for people who can contribute to the education of fellow
designers

26. Rules (continued)
• Seek permission from all of your stakeholders
before sharing: Don't sneak work into the guild under
your client's or boss' nose
• We operate under the FriendDA: Seek explicit
permission before sharing anything you saw outside of the
guild
• Disclose any possible conflicts of interest before
collaborating: It's up to the requester to decide whether to
proceed
• Any guild work you do belongs to the requester: The
requester is free to use it however they like without reseeking
your consent

29. Designing a Design Guild

30. Sociotechnical Systems

31. Social & Technical Systems
Technology Community

32. Social & Technical Systems
Code Policy

33. Sociotechnical Systems
Constraints

34. Constraints

35. Constraints

36. Sociotechnical Systems are successful when the
right constraints are in place, regardless of where
they are implemented

37. • Static
• Directly Controllable
• Replicable
• Rigid
• Dynamic
• Indirectly Controlled
• Contextual
• Flexible

38. Implications
• Static analysis is impossible
• All analysis must be done in the context of use
• To derive generalizable findings, study constraints rather
than artifacts
• Successful sociotechnical systems last by maintaining
constraints in the face of changing social environments

39. • Start with the social system first
• Use technology to augment
• Three projects:
• Situational Awareness
• Human Expertise Routing Network
• Measuring Contribution
• Use technology to help deal with scale

40. Social Affordances

41. Affordances

42. Social Affordances

43. 4 Factors of Social Affordance
• Audience
• Context
• Benefit
• Cost

44. 4 Factors of Social Affordance
• Audience
• Context
• Benefit
• Cost

45. The Problem
• Any Audience
• No Context
• Unclear Benefit
• Only Cost is Effort

46. The Problem
• Any Audience
• No Context
• Unclear Benefit
• Only Cost is Effort

47. Goal: A place for meaningful, substantive & productive
interaction

48. Audience:
• Pre-screened
• Committee of peers
• Base level of design talent

49. Context:
• Basic level of design literacy expected
• Work framed the conversation
• Helpfulness as a norm

50. Benefit:
• Connect with other designers
• Exposure to new skills/techniques/knowledge
• Produce better design

51. Costs:
• Time
• Unwanted Social Obligation
• Possibility of breach of confidentiality
• Reputational Risk

52. These affordances will change over time, the
challenge is to stay true to the goal

53. Plazas vs Warrens

54. Plazas & Warrens
• All Social Systems can be decomposed into:
• Plaza:
• Warren:

55. Plazas
• Shared, contiguous space
• Every person interacts with every other person
• Chatrooms/Comment threads/Meetings
• Plazas scale by getting bigger
• Easy to start, hard to scale

56. Warrens
• Fragmented, personalized spaces
• Can only interact with immediate surrounds
• Facebook/IM/Cities
• Warrens scale by adding more warrens
• Hard to start, easy to scale

57. Plazas & Warrens
• Every Social System is a combination of Plazas & Warrens
Warrens
Plaza
Plaza

58. • Currently, mainly a plaza
• How do we scale?
• How do we avoid bad elements?
• Journeyman/Apprentice/Master?
• Geographical/Time Segregation?

59. Plazas & Warrens
• The architecture of your product will determine how people
communicate
• Designing the correct Social Experience involves making sure
this architecture is correct
• The necessity of Plazas vs Warrens will change as your
community changes

60. Three Methodologies
• Apply generally to all social
systems
• Abstracted knowledge
• Allow for generalizable
learning
Sociotechnical Systems, Social • The first step in a scientific
Affordances & Plazas/Warrens discipline...

61. Conclusions

62. 1. Social Experience Design is a
distinct problem space

63. 2. We are still in a Pre-Scientific
era for Social Experience Design

64. 3. The Product Design Guild is
Awesome!
(come talk to me after about how you can help)
Or sign up at: http://www.productdesignguild.com

65. Questions?