Designing for the social web

Synopsis

Joshua Porter is a web designer that has focused on designing social media. In this book he looks at the real world social interactions between people, and discusses how software can be designed to facilitate and provide authentic and valuable communication. The book features examples from many social media applications and web sites which he comments on covering the designs and the underlying social psychology theory.

Topics covered in this book.

• The real reasons why people participate online and the psychology behind them
• The Usage Lifecycle—or how people use your web application over time
• How to get people past that trickiest of hurdles: sign-up
• What to do when you’ve launched a web application and nobody is using it
• How to analyze the effectiveness of your application screens and flows
• How to grow your social web application from zero users to 1000—and beyond

Designing for the social web is about much more than adding features. It’s about embracing the social interaction of the people who make you successful—and then designing smartly to encourage it.

Summary

This is a book that resonates closely with many of my own thoughts on how we need to approach user experience generally and specifically for social engagement.

A solid read anyone interested in designing social media, covering a huge number of the interactions we see in social applications. Providing some great thoughts on the many challenges in getting users to want to engage and comeback for more. There are also a number of really interest references to psychologists and their research into social psychology.

Available from
Amazon.co.uk

Creative-Resonance is a Registered Amazon Affiliate and is given a small commission when you buy this book from the Amazon page linked to from this page. This only works when you buy from the linked page, as Amazon do not pass the referral detail between pages when you browse.