August 11th, 2009
Designing for Social Traction (slide deck)
by Joshua Porter | 
21 Comments | shortlink: http://bokardo.com/p/1439
Here is the slide deck from a talk I gave last week at Delve, a two-day masterclass held in Brooklyn, NY.
The talk is in three parts, with each part focusing on a specific problem in software. Each problem is a major hurdle in what I call the usage lifecycle, or the stages people go through as they use and adopt software over time. These three hurdles come directly out of the work I do with clients…I’ve been focusing almost exclusively on these specific problems…I hope the slides help you focus on them as well.
The feedback from my talk has been great…lots of folks like to see these steps broken down…I think it helps make design challenges a little more manageable so you don’t feel overwhelmed with “so much is broken…what should I fix first?”. I would love any feedback you have as this new content will make its way into the 2nd edition of my book.
Also, these slides comprise about 50% of a workshop I’m offering (the workshop is more detailed and has exercises). If you are interested in having me give the workshop to you or your team, or having me give this talk to your team (complete with examples explained and backstories), get in touch.
Links to this Post
Comments
1. Miriam Schwab 4:28am, Wed 12th, 2009
This is an excellent presentation. The idea of getting users to use first, sign up later, is brilliant.
2. David Thomas Garcia 5:48pm, Thu 13th, 2009
Slide 15 = revelation.
Point 3 on “Levels of Description” is really interesting. I feel like this is something most web sites do, even if they do not know they are doing so. I’d love to see more illustrated examples of this in the wild, as you did with Netflix.
Under first time use, I saw an interesting example of a welcome box at http://launch.ly/ which included a Retweet button – a subtle social influence factor right in the opening message. This is also an example where first time use will normally happen before sign up. (Only thing I don’t like is their use of dotted underlines, which should indicate a link.)
After seeing the slides for “Sense of Efficacy” I was left wondering what are all the options available for moving your application around in the challenges/skills graph. I guess you’ll include even more examples later, perhaps even a list of ideas? It always amazes me how well video game designers ride the balance but how difficult it is to do in applications.
3. Ben Nevile 11:58am, Tue 18th, 2009
Great info as usual, Joshua!
4. Okke 3:56pm, Sat 29th, 2009
I recently opened up a posterous group regarding a beekeeping project in Africa I am involved in. The average beekeeper is 60 years old. Not the most tech savvy group. No one believed they could have a website by sending an email. Starting engagement right away in this case was the only way this group would start using this software.
Thank you for the great presentation!
5. Vickie Smith-Siculiano, PMP 1:09pm, Mon 31st, 2009
VERY relevant topic for social media marketers, or companies that want to stick their toe in and test the water. Especially if they’re going to try on a digital agency for size, what questions might they have about converting customers in different stages of the buying process – your presentation was insightful, thoughtful, and I like the “sign up is hard” slide, with powerful stats – especially free vs paid – Chris Anderson spoke of this recently, explaining the idea of “freemium,” and I think your point is well-made. (Sorry I missed you in Brooklyn, where this girl’s originally from!)
6. Amos Newcombe 9:20am, Thu 3rd, 2009
Good stuff, but a minor nitpick: on slide 3, the original conversion funnel would look more dramatically narrowing if the length of the bars were proportional to the actual percentages they represent.
7. Leo Luo 2:15am, Mon 7th, 2009
Pretty good presentation. I learned a lot from it. And wish to practice in my company’s own site.
Thanks again for your sharing and Guy Kawasaki’s recommending. I found it from http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/the-world/article/how-to-design-for-social-traction-guy-kawasaki-1.