16 Core Observations of Social Design

by Joshua Porter  |   August 27th, 2007  |  shortlink: http://bokardo.com/p/667

Here’s a quick list of 16 observations about life that have serious effects on social design. Note that none of these are how people interact with interfaces, per se, but how we interact with other people. Interfaces are an intermediary, an arbiter of exchange between people on either end, and are therefore crucial to how we communicate.

  1. Humans are complex social animals.
  2. Technology doesn’t change us very fast.
  3. Humans constantly search out ways to communicate more efficiently.
  4. The primary use of the Internet is communication.
  5. People play different roles in different parts of their life.
  6. People tend to connect to those people they are similar to.
  7. Who we are similar to depends upon our situation and goals.
  8. Over-similarity can lead to group-think.
  9. Unpredictable behavior emerges within groups over time.
  10. People act differently in groups than they do individually.
  11. The people we know greatly influence how we act.
  12. People usually compare themselves to those in their social group, not society at large.
  13. Humans aren’t always rational, but are usually self-interested.
  14. When humans are uncertain, we rely on social connections to help us out.
  15. We have biases that we aren’t conscious of.
  16. Because life in not deterministic, we cannot always predict human behavior.

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Comments

1.  Gene 5:41pm, Mon 27th, 2007

I really like this list. I even like point #13 better than the “Del.icio.us Lesson” (which has always felt like an oversimplification to me).

2.  Vivek Deshmukh 10:53pm, Mon 27th, 2007

Another useful list of points to remember while building products :)

One of the challenge I see is in designing for #5 People play different roles in different parts of their life. In what ways can we capture these different roles and design for those goals?

3.  Jason Vu 12:54am, Tue 28th, 2007

Thanks for a helpful list.

4.  Justin Thorp 9:39am, Tue 28th, 2007

All too often I meet people who have ideas for new Web applications or startups but they lack the basic understanding of the human condition. They don’t understand these social observations.

We need to take the time to get away from our computers and hang out with people. We need to see these observations at work.

5.  Rob Crowther 10:26am, Tue 28th, 2007

> 4. The primary use of the Internet is communication.

I’m kind of curious as to what the other uses are? The only use of the internet is communication – it’s a communication network?

It’s an interesting list though, do you have any sources for the items listed?

6.  Szymon Blaszczyk 4:58pm, Wed 29th, 2007

“Humans aren’t always rational, but are usually self-interested.”

Yes, but not always self-interested in therms of economy or even on some level on Maslow’s pyramid. Their (our) need are more mysterious.

7.  Niels Goos 10:29am, Thu 15th, 2007

Interesting contribution. I was wondering, are you sure that Technology doesn’t change us very fast? If you look at how technology has changed our social life you would have to conclude this is pretty big. Some people prefer an internet connection over a girlfriend. Social networks arise and this stimulates further globalization.

To get further into interface design; technology does change the interface design. Look at the interfaces ten years ago and the interfaces nowadays. New technologies allow richer interfaces, but also more challenging in making user friendly interfaces. At least that how I look at it. Interesting topic.