Comments on: Deciding What Features to Implement: Let Features Emerge From User Behavior http://bokardo.com/archives/let-features-emerge-from-user-behavior/ A Blog about Social Web Design Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:36:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: bill h-d http://bokardo.com/archives/let-features-emerge-from-user-behavior/comment-page-1/#comment-337 bill h-d Tue, 22 Mar 2005 18:11:19 +0000 http://bokardo.com/archives/deciding-what-features-to-implement-let-features-emerge-from-user-behavior/#comment-337 Adding a little Activity Theory perspective...I would point out that "emergent features" are a great example of leveraging the way people learn from observing the actions and interactons of others in social spaces. Observing the goal-oriented actions of others is valuable precisely because we can observe these apart from the complex motivations of the actors and abstracted from the mundane operational details that make each one somewhat unique. We can track patterns (emergent features), in other words, that provide meaningful help for us as we face similar situations. Think of the way you would learn how to buy a ticket at a multiplex you hadn't visited before. You'd likely watch what everybody else is doing and match the choices they make to goals you, yourself, have...buying a ticket, getting popcorn, queuing before the theater is open, or going to the bathroom. You'd get help from signage, built environment layout, etc...but the best guidance would be from you fellow moviegoers. The point I am making, I guess, is this: don't feel like you have to provide endless detail when implementing emergent features...the ambiguity of intention and glossing-over of operational detail are benefits to users, not drawbacks, as they seek to identify patterns and apply what they learn to their own goals. Adding a little Activity Theory perspective…I would point out that “emergent features” are a great example of leveraging the way people learn from observing the actions and interactons of others in social spaces. Observing the goal-oriented actions of others is valuable precisely because we can observe these apart from the complex motivations of the actors and abstracted from the mundane operational details that make each one somewhat unique. We can track patterns (emergent features), in other words, that provide meaningful help for us as we face similar situations.

Think of the way you would learn how to buy a ticket at a multiplex you hadn’t visited before. You’d likely watch what everybody else is doing and match the choices they make to goals you, yourself, have…buying a ticket, getting popcorn, queuing before the theater is open, or going to the bathroom. You’d get help from signage, built environment layout, etc…but the best guidance would be from you fellow moviegoers.

The point I am making, I guess, is this: don’t feel like you have to provide endless detail when implementing emergent features…the ambiguity of intention and glossing-over of operational detail are benefits to users, not drawbacks, as they seek to identify patterns and apply what they learn to their own goals.

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