Jason Kottke points to a study in which researchers found evidence that the brain reacts differently to people who seem like us.

This isn’t surprising, of course. We do tend to react differently when we feel like we’re around a like-minded person.

But how can this help inform design?

We already see many features which take advantage of this, such as grouping features, demographic filters, “viewers like you”, and many others. Folks mentioned around the idea of Circles of Relationships.

In addition, many recommendation engines are built on what’s called “person-based collaborative filtering” (see Wikipedia: collaborative filtering). When Netflix figures out what movies to recommend to you, what they’re really doing is assuming that people who have rated like you in the past are the best predictors of future ratings. You can get a sense of this from the “similarity” number that shows up in your friends pages on the site.

However, Amazon’s “people who shopped for this also shopped for” isn’t actually person-based collaborative filtering. They use “item-based” instead, meaning that they collaboratively filter based on what items are purchased at the same time, regardless of who purchased them. (see David’s comment below, he also talked about the negative reaction “people like me” sometimes gets)

In my own research I’ve found that many people read comments, reviews, and other online material and make some judgement of how similar they are to a person. If they are similar, they’ll weigh that person’s opinion much more than others. If they aren’t similar, if the person doesn’t seem to have the same values or appreciations, then we give them less weight.

Do you know of any great examples of a “people like me” feature?

Do you ever feel like your personal information is spread across the web in a whole bunch of separate places? An account here, a profile there? A friends list here and a friends list there? All your information, but in all different places all incomplete at the same time?

The Social Graph API helps solve this “silos of information” problem by allowing people to write software that understands who your friends are. It does this by reading your web site or blog and making connections between the social profiles you have across the web.

For example, imagine you have a blog, which is your home on the web. You also have an Amazon profile, a Twitter profile, and a Facebook profile. So you have four profiles spread across the web, seemingly unconnected. Amazon has no idea who your friends on Facebook or Twitter are, and vice-versa, and this is a good thing from a privacy standpoint. These sites shouldn’t be able to find out everything about you with you giving them permission.

But what if you wanted these sites to know a bit about each other? What if you want to combine your Amazon book history with your friends lists at Facebook so that you can see what your friends are reading and let Amazon give you recommendations based on your similarity with them? Or, perhaps you just joined Twitter and want to know which of your Facebook friends are already there so you don’t have to go hunting for them? (see video) Here we see real-world examples of how cross-pollinating your personal information between these sites can not only be efficient, but desirable. (Not everyone will want to do this, however)

This type of scenario is what the Google Social Graph API is going to help solve. It does this by reading information on your blog that describes your other online profiles. So you might declare that you have a Twitter profile at http://twitter.com/bokardo or you have a Facebook profile at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=500576058. Now, given your permission, Amazon can go out and find your Twitter friends and perhaps make book recommendations to you. Or, when you join a new social network, you can simply add your friends from existing networks with the click of a button.

So that’s the big reason why I’m excited by the Social Graph API: it helps to solve a real tough problem brought on by the proliferation of social networks. But there are several more reasons, too:

No Dependence on Google (or anyone else)

While Google is providing the API, nobody is dependent on them for creating or storing our relationships. This is done by the individual (as well as the services we sign up for). This means that Google isn’t in control of our relationship content. This is very much like how Search works. We own the content that we write on our web site. Google simply indexes it and provides tools to find, filter, and sort it. Google is an aggregator, not a creator. Google will be in competition to have the best aggregator of the graph.

The best way to explain this might be to point out that others can do exactly what Google is doing here. Since the relationship information is embedded within web sites anybody can index this information. So competitors can come along and try to provide a better API or better tools than Google.

Not a Walled Garden like Facebook

As Jeff Jarvis says: “The internet is the social network“. Walled gardens are not. Facebook is a great place to socialize. But they don’t own the relationships that happen there. Unlike Facebook, Google isn’t trying to own our social graph. This is incredibly important for the openness of the web. (btw: Jeff doesn’t think XFN and FOAF will gain traction…but I think they will because they are easy to implement and because solving this problem is too important. RSS and trackbacks are two technologies that succeeded in the same way)

This is in contrast to how Facebook runs things, which is by their permission. They want to own the relationship data. That’s why this API by Google is, to me, still a far better alternative. They are simply providing the best tool and keeping competition open.

A good indicator of this is to take a look at the first words on the Social Graph API: “Build critical mass on your website”. Would these words ever show up on anything by FB? NO. Their words would be “Build critical mass on our website”.

Based on Open Standards

The social relationships that the API exposes are encoded in regular old HTML using the XFN and FOAF formats. These are open standards that anybody can use. These are very easy to write and understand. Web developers will be able to learn what they need to in about 5 minutes in order to write these formats. Go HTML!

It will take a bit longer for blog publishers to write plugins that publish these formats for us, so that non-developers can publish their relationships as well. But with the amazing number of developers already creating plugins and other extensions, this won’t be a problem.

An Ecosystem

The Social Graph API is an ecosystem that anybody can play in. Since the relationship data is available to anybody, the spoils will go to the best tools that take advantage of them. Thus we have an ecosystem of open competition that allows anybody to play. Anybody with some spare time on their hands can jump in and create some cool program that helps people stay in better touch with their friends or somehow leverages those relationships. This move by Google cements their belief in the web as platform and reinforces their corporate mission to “help organize the world’s information”.

APIs are Great

This move by Google underscores the importance of APIs. The best thing about APIs is that we simply don’t know (and can’t imagine) how useful they can be. Developers will undoubtedly dream up a myriad of ways to use the API, some of which will become killer applications. The power of APIs is not what we can see plainly, but what we can’t see quite yet.

The User is in Charge

This is the biggest part of why I’m excited. My personal relationship information isn’t behind some walled garden. I’m in control of my own social graph! If I want people to know I have a Twitter account, then I can. If I don’t want them to be sure then I won’t make that relationship explicit on my blog.

The Domain as Identity is Realized

I don’t write about it often, but you may remember some posts about domain as identity I’ve written in the past. The Google Social Graph API is now getting us there by recognizing when we define our own relationships in our own domain. As more and more services look to our domain for verification, that only puts us more in charge of our online identity. Combine this with OpenID, and the idea of domain as identity really takes shape.

In the same way that we are in control of our own bodies, we need to be in control of our own domains. This is how we’re going to get privacy, if we want it. If you feel that you’re not in control of your domain, then you need to take your business elsewhere. This is why I dislike services that require you to have a subdomain within some other domain…those services that let you use your own domain are far preferable because you can at any point move your domain elsewhere. Just like you move your residence IRL.

What do I need to do?

So where does this leave us? Well, it leaves us with two very obvious next steps.

1. Get your own domain! – if you don’t have your own domain…go get one! (and not a subdomain)
2. Mark up your code – use the XFN and FOAF formats to markup your site, or use a service that does this for you. I seriously need to do this myself. (I have a FOAF file, that’s about it)

It won’t be long before developers take advantage of the Social Graph API to really leverage these relationships. There is already software taking advantage of the API. Google has provided some tools that allow you to discover your contacts. Play around with this and you can see the power of this API. We might actually have some coherence to personal information on the web after all.

Going forward

The truth is that Facebook, Amazon, or even Twitter never had a good glimpse of my true social network anyway. Therefore, they had an incomplete social graph. I never gave Facebook my email list, they don’t know anything about my blog, and I’m going to keep it that way. While Facebook and others can create a fun place to hang out, they don’t own the relationships I create there. I do.

Also, it should be pointed out that Google released the Social Graph API on the same day that Microsoft announced their intention to take over Yahoo. The irony of this can’t be more complete.

One is a sign of the past. One is a sign of the future.

Update: Discussion on privacy implications of the Social Graph API

52% of people who shop online do product research at Amazon.com

And, perhaps even more amazing is that what those shoppers are going for isn’t even provided by Amazon: customer reviews. Nope, much of the valuable information on the site is provided by other people who write reviews, describe their experiences, and help others watch out for bad products.

That’s the power of social interaction. While we probably listen to the people selling us products some of the time, what we’re really interested in is what other people like us have to say.

Unbiased, unvarnished, authentic voices. Are you designing for them?

Sharing is crucial in social design. It allows people to share your application/service/web site with others in a way that you as the designer can’t. What other people say about you is an order of magnitude more powerful than what you can say about you.

If you don’t have smooth, easy process for sharing you are hampering the growth of your app. Sure, people will share to some extent on their own, but why force them to? When someone sends a personal, relevant message sharing something, the recipient will take notice. Make that as easy as possible.

Here is the sharing form for Amazon’s wish lists. It’s a typical sharing form: a bit of explanatory text, an email field, and a message.

But for some reason, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why, Amazon doesn’t let you edit the message. And they really should, as the message suffers from several problems:

• This form literally puts words into people’s mouths, as they can’t change the text.
• The copy-writing is painful. It creates a fake history for the person and sounds like it was written by someone desperate to make a sale.
• “create one for yourself”??? This is a good example of focusing on social value instead of personal value. (ala the Del.icio.us Lesson)
• It is obvious that nobody would write this to a friend or family member. Do friends or family members sign their last names? No.

This bizarre design choice on Amazon makes the act of sharing a wish list impersonal, thereby killing most of the effect. Not only do you lose the identity of the sender, but you can’t set any context for the email at all. You can’t say “Hey Mom, here’s the Wii game I was talking about” or “Hey Grandma, instead of sending me ugly sweatpants of the local sports team send me these books”. After reading this message several times I keep thinking “who would ever send this?”. What context would this fit?

Simply put, any advantage you could gain by allowing people to send a wish list in their own identity is lost. As Charles Eames said: “The details are not the details. They make the design.”

Update: A member of the Amazon Wish List team says:

“The text of this email has been locked temporarily for security reasons until we can implement a better solution.

The timing before the holidays is quite unfortunate.”

(editor’s note: drop me a line if you find this type of post useful…I have *lots* of these examples)

The Long Tail, or the death of the product shelf (where shelf space becomes irrelevant when content is digital) brought on tremendous change in the economics of distribution. Netflix rents most of its movies from the catalog of past movies, not from the current list of blockbusters. Same with Amazon and books, iTunes and music. Christopher Anderson goes into a lot more details in the book he wrote on the subject: The Long Tail.

When content is digital, a public good, it is freely distributable by electronic means. It is infinitely copyable at 100% fidelity. Moreover, as the Long Tail shows, libraries of content can be built cheaply which provide value for the long term. Once Google digitizes all the books in the world they won’t ever have to again.

In other words, all content is available at all times.

What does this lead to? The Paradox of Choice! There are simply too many things to choose from. Which of the thousands of movies on Netflix do I rent? Which of the books on Amazon do I read? Which of the songs on iTunes do I listen to?

In the past, we listened to either the creator or the distributor for help. Since choice was limited, they would steer us to something in their limited selection. You either went to one of the movies at the local theater, or you didn’t watch a movie. You either bought a book from the book store or checked one out of the library, or you didn’t read. If you were lucky enough to be near a creator (like a rock band) you either went to the pub to listen to them or you went without live music.

The creator and the distributor, however, had a problem. They were always and forever biased. You couldn’t ask either the band or the book store for a recommendation because they would only recommend something in their repertoire.

With digital content, the repertoire contains all possible choices. The Long Tail has given us more choice than we could have hoped for! Now the distributor can simply tell us which is the best book, the best movie, and the best music. Right?

Contrary to what we would think, however, most distributors are still biased. They still try to pick products for you, rather than helping you find the best fit for your needs. They know you’re going to buy something because they have everything. So many distributors make deals with manufacturers to see who will pony up the big advertising dollars. Who will buy the most end caps. Who will buy the preferred ads on the web site. Who will pay money for the ability to get separated from the pack.

Instead of the Long Tail solving the choice problem, the customers are still often left with the question: how do I choose the right item for me?

Social design is thus forced upon the marketplace. The Long Tail begets social features that let users help each other (either implicitly or explicitly). The only way for people to find out what’s best for them is to route around the system in the way they’ve always done.

Ask other people. Have conversations. Give and get recommendations. Tell someone what your preferences are, and they’ll give you their best guess.

And that’s what Netflix and Amazon and iTunes have done. They’ve accepted that customers do in fact know a wealth of information about their wares compared to any one source (even themselves). In a sense they were forced to recognize this, for they had no other way to give recommendations to their customers. (any amount of research would show that people still struggle mightily with choosing items online) The old constraint of shelf space, and thus a less-than-everything inventory, is gone.

Which leaves companies who have not done so (competitors to Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes) with a choice: do they help this process and build social tools for their customers, or do they continue to support business as usual?

Social Design Reading List

Over the past few months, lots of folks have asked me for a social design reading list. I started putting one together a while back, but it’s a lot more work than I originally anticipated. It’s hard to put together a decent list of books on a subject that doesn’t quite exist while also keeping that list to books you’re familiar with while also making sure those books are good.

As you browse the reading list, you’ll notice a few things. One is that almost all the books are soft-cover and relatively inexpensive ($10-$20). I tried to include easy-to-read books that you can take with you while traveling or actually hold up in bed. Second, you’ll notice there are only a few books on social theory and design. That’s because there just aren’t that many! I have included a lot of other web & interface design/development books I have found value in, so this isn’t exclusively a social design reading list. And, of course, people building social web applications have to do all the other parts of design as well.

If you do know of some books that should be added to the list, please let me know either in the comments or by contacting me. So far I’ve kept the list to books that I know and have read (at least parts of all of them). I’m sure there are others, but I didn’t want to include all books about social media, I only wanted to include the very best ones.

Why did I do this as an Amazon astore?

I’ve never had advertising on Bokardo, and I am hoping to keep it that way. Your attention is precious, and I don’t want to change the motivations for which I post. If I was taking money from advertisers then my motivations would change, however slightly, to increase the frequency of posting and the number of clicks I could send the advertiser’s way. That’s not the relationship I want with either my readers or an advertiser. I believe that a writer should write when they have something to say…not because they need to keep advertisers happy.

Putting up an astore is a good compromise, I think. It provides value in the form of a reading list, and in exchange for sending customers to Amazon I get a small referral fee (~4%). To you, the book buyer, the experience is the exact same as if you went to Amazon directly. The same security, the same prices, the same everything. You can even have access to your wish list, which I find pretty cool. In no way do I know who you are or any details of your Amazon account. The transaction is completely opaque to me, even though it says “Bokardo Store” at the top of the page.

For those of you who are fans of NPR, this is the same Amazon referral program they use. And, like NPR, if you end up purchasing other things (like Holiday gifts) at Amazon after starting out in the reading list, I may get a referral fee for those as well. So every purchase that starts out on the reading list helps support Bokardo.

Going forward, you’ll see the reading list in the columns on the right side of Bokardo. I’ll be updating it regularly as I read more books and new books come onto the market.

Let me know what you think. Enjoy the reading list!

“Milton Glaser’s Dylan poster. Paul Rand’s IBM logo. Paula Scher’s Public Theater posters. Massimo Vignelli’s New York subway map. Kyle Cooper’s Seven opening titles. These are only a few landmark projects of our profession. Design solutions that, in their consistent use as exemplary cases of execution, concept and process, don’t even need to be shown anymore and that, for better or worse, (almost) everyone acknowledges as being seminal works that reflect the goals that graphic design strives for: A visual solution that not only enables, but also transcends, the message to become memorable in the eyes and minds of viewers. Whether these projects are indeed as amazing, relevant and enviable as we have built them up to be is cause for a separate discussion but it’s safe to say that, as far as designs recognized around the profession, there are a certain few that invariably make the list, usually without question. Myself, I could list projects in every category from logos, to annual reports, to magazine covers, to packaging, to typefaces, to opening titles that could be considered landmark projects… But when it comes to web sites, I can’t think of a single www that could be comparable – in gravitas, praise, or memorability – as any of the few projects I just mentioned. Could this be?”

Armin then goes and mentions the obvious answer: Google.

But this is not an acceptable answer for him, because…wait for it…the logo sucks.

To talk about Google in terms of its logo has long been a pastime for people who care about logos. For years I’ve heard the same argument from people who want nothing more than to get rid of the “Mickey Mouse” logo, as it is often described.

Armin’s point is that while Google seems to be better than Yahoo, it is still plagued with a bad logo. He’s not “moved or inspired” by the design. Therefore, he reasons, it is not canonical design. Canonical design, in his mind, is one that practitioners of the medium look to as exemplary.

But, frankly, I think Armin has missed his own point. He wants to know what web designers see as canonical, but he’s dismissing the obvious answer because it doesn’t fit into his canonical mold of graphic design. In other words, he’s looking at Google from a graphic design perspective, when web designers necessarily have to look at it from an interaction design perspective.

If Armin were to ask web designers and web development teams what the canonical web designs are, he would get very clear answers.

The first answer would indeed be Google. Google has, for nearly ten years, provided the best search engine on the Web. It is the standard by which all other search engines are compared. In the exact same way that Massimo Vignelli’s New York subway map has affected the design of subway maps since, Google has affected the design of search engines. I know design teams that have copied the search results pages of Google almost exactly simply because it was the design that Google used.

I also know a tremendous number of web designers who look to the spartan Google homepage as inspiration that great tools don’t need complex interfaces.

So if a “landmark” or “canonical” design means that it affects all design afterward, then Google certainly fits the bill.

Amazon also fits into that category. Amazon’s checkout process was the standard by which all checkout processes were measured for years. Their product reviews are the standard by which design teams the world over create product reviews. Their tabbed interface set the standard…their recommendation system…etc. Amazon pioneered so many things that seem commonplace now that you would be hard-pressed to find a more influential example.

Talk to web designers, product managers, and other web professionals, and these are the sites they’ll mention. Don’t talk just to people who build brochure sites…all they talk about is graphic design. Your answers will be the same as above. But talk to web designers and developers, and they’ll start talking about when Amazon added that extra row of tabs and quickly realized their mistake. It has become legend.

eBay has set the standard for auction sites. Social network sites are changing the world as we know it. Thousands and thousands of web designers are retooling their arsenal of features, layouts, and screen flows because these sites have completely changed the game.

So if its influence you want, you’ve got it. To borrow Armin’s own words “as far as designs recognized around the profession, there are a certain few that invariably make the list, usually without question”. Google. Amazon. Facebook. eBay. Yahoo. Craigslist. YouTube.

Do they have “gravitas, praise, or memorability”? Yes, they certainly do in the minds of web designers.

Will they be praised by print designers and put into large coffee table books? No, of course not.

You can’t appreciate a web site in the same way you appreciate a logo or a poster. When a logo works, it makes you think certain things. Makes you think about the company, their influence, their reach. It’s about branding. The IBM logo suggests a solidity, the rock that is Big Blue. At this point, after you’ve thought these things, you’re done. There is nothing else to do. Maybe you’ll consider their products in the future.

When a web site works, on the other hand, you’re using it to do something. You might be looking for your next favorite book on Amazon, or searching for a critical piece of information on Google. You’re using the web site…interacting with it, having an experience that, contrary to logos, involves you. You are inputting information, asking questions, getting answers.

So, as a web designer, there is no analog to “look at this logo and see how it stands for a company”. That’s relatively easy for graphic designers because we can quickly appreciate the way a logo graphically depicts some attribute of the company: “solid, blue, Big Blue, trustworthy”. Even if we don’t like the company or if its never done anything good for us, we can make this judgment of the design of the logo.

But in web design, we can’t pass such sophisticated judgment on a design without having an actual experience with the web application itself. Without actually experiencing the value first-hand, we can’t look at a web site and say “hey, that web site is well designed because it represents the company well”. This is the primary disconnect when talking about judging great web design. You’ve got to experience it in a real way to know if it is great.

So while Armin doesn’t want this to be about graphic vs. web design, it has to be at some level because web designers necessarily approach design from a different perspective than graphic designers.

Graphic designers can judge by looking. Web designers cannot. Web designers must judge by doing (or observing others doing). The problem is that too many people judge web designs without actually using them. Instead, they look. When you use the shortcut of looking, you tend to judge what you’re looking at: the visuals. But when you use something, your relationship to that thing necessarily changes. I wonder how often Armin uses Google.

That’s why web design is different. Peer production, in particular, is extremely different. When I buy a book on Amazon, when you buy a book, we change the way the site works for someone else buying books, which is in turn changed by the reviews we write afterward. Is this not amazing design?

Comparing the best web design with the best graphic design is a fool’s errand because they are celebrated differently by the very people in the profession. Graphic designers tend to memorialize their achievements, make heroes out of the top designers. Its easy to do, since individuals were the ones who actually created the designs. Milton Glaser. Paul Rand. Easy targets for appreciation.

Who do we credit for building Google? Larry and Sergei? How about Amazon? Jeff Bezos? People in the web development community know this is silly…thousands and thousands of people have worked on those sites, tweaking the user experience over many years. There is no single person we can point our accolades to. That’s part of the reason why I can’t make a list like Armin did…specific projects by specific people.

And this brings up another point. When someone is known for doing something good, their future work is colored by it. So all the logos that Paul Rand designed after the IBM logo were put up on a pedestal. Even if they weren’t so good. In web design, there are so many people working on something that it is hard to attribute a success to an individual, and so there are few legendary designers we can point to.

In addition, in web design there is no single design element like a logo we can point to in praise. You never see a product review standing by itself like you do the IBM logo. Web design needs the context of the site to make sense. A logo does not.

The lore of web design is different than the lore of printed design. Print design produces artifacts that do not change. Web design produces applications that do.

Is Google a technical achievement? Absolutely. Does that mean it isn’t a design achievement? No. It’s an astounding design achievement to make Google work the way it does. To enter a query and get a relevant response in under a second while searching the *entire* web is a design achievement that has few equals. Some may say this is simply “engineering” and dismiss it. But engineering takes planning, and that planning is design.

But, you ask, does Google look great? Eh. But at some point we have to ask: how would the experience be different if it did look better? Would it have any affect on the people who use it? (I use it in my browser, so I rarely see the logo in question anyway) Maybe designers would talk about it more, but geez they are already talking about it a lot as it is.

What would the world be like if everything were beautiful? Is that even possible?

My practical side says that whether or not Google moves the aesthetic sensibilities is irrelevant as long as people enjoy using it. That’s the important metric: use. Judging Google on aesthetics is like judging the Great Wall of China on its color of brick. It’s possible…but you’re missing the entire value proposition.

And, it goes without saying that lots of people find Google just fine aesthetically.

So, as a designer, do I worry that Google has a lousy logo? No…and I don’t think many web designers do. Most web designers know that the value of Google is in its utility, not its appearance. Can it still be canonical? Absolutely.

As usual, the crux of this discussion comes down to what we mean when we say “good design”. Do we mean the way something looks, as so many of the people who commented on Armin’s post seem to be saying? Or do we mean the way it affects us over time? Or perhaps how useful something is?

This is not an easy answer, and whatever answer you tend to subscribe to is going to change the way you look at Armin’s problem.

As for me, I tend to follow Steve Jobs on this one when he says “design is how something works”. Granted, this is a broad definition of design, but really, it seems to fit, doesn’t it? When design does what we want it to, we say “it works well”. Google works well. Amazon works well.

And to those folks who say “what Armin is saying is that design might as well look good, too” I say “we’ve already agreed that aesthetics are subjective…we will eventually run out of air for this conversation”.

Khoi Vinh of Subtraction, in reading Armin’s tea leaves, laments that web design is growing boring. After suggesting that too many designers are moving away from actually building things (which I agree with), he says that it is having an adverse affect:

“What that leaves is an enormous and unfulfilled gap in the middle which, while it’s not entirely unoccupied, is sparsely populated. And that’s our problem. We don’t have enough designers who do both (think and design); we have a polarized industry right now, and the result, as Armin tactfully alludes to in his article, is that Web design is really boring. Sorry, but it’s true.”

Web design is anything but boring. Look at what is happening with Facebook right now. They are exploring a new paradigm of social design. Can we build recommendation systems that inform us while not pissing us off? What part of social interaction can we model next? Are there social relationships we can’t model? Shouldn’t model?

If you think logos are interesting, what about the question: “What does it mean to be a fan of a for-profit company?”

These are the design challenges that lay before the web designer and to me are much more interesting than looking for a canonical web design. They are anything but boring.

I daresay these questions are more complicated than anything a graphic designer has ever been challenged with. The reason? They involve the person who is receiving the message and how that person responds. Two-way communication is harder than one-way. The biggest reason why it is harder is that accountability emerges as the conversation progresses…

Later, in the comments, Armin clarifies what he’s looking for:

“I find it a little too stubborn to keep saying that web sites are experiences and as such, not one, can be pinpointed as great or exemplifying of the medium.”

A great experience? How do you think that Google trumped all the other search engines and achieved a majority market share in the face of staggering competition? How do you think Amazon creates such passion in its users? Netflix? eBay? Craigslist?

And exemplifying the medium? Try to think of the Web and not think of Google!

The web is not suffering from a lack of canonical design. It’s just that canonical design on the web isn’t as glamorous as some want it to be.

That’s apparently what Harriet Klausner is doing. The famed #1 book reviewer on Amazon.com (who does claim to be a speed-reader) posts, on average, 7 book reviews a day. So not only does Harriet have time for reading all these books, she can also whip off reviews of them pretty quickly, too.

Color me skeptical, and I’m not the only one. Read this page of comments to see how curious observers are challenging Harriet’s numbers, while others are coming to her aid.

Their antipathy might actually be useful, given that Klausner is apparently trying to game the system so she keeps her position. In a world where building social tools like this is becoming more common every day, Klausner is diluting the value of her reviews just for personal gain. While nobody is going to get too upset over less-than-helpful reviews, the larger, longer effect is that if she’s merely writing them to keep her spot, she’s not writing them for the right reason. Amazon’s social design should incentivize her to write valuable reviews, not allow her to write them without value.

At any rate, Klausner faces fierce competition for the top spot. Though nobody has written nearly as many reviews as her, the distinction of Top Reviewer isn’t based solely on the number of reviews. It also takes into consideration the number of “helpful votes”, which are votes that any reader can give when they read the review.

Here’s the list of Top Reviewers as it now stands.

As you can see, Don Mitchell is great at writing reviews. For every review he has written, he has received almost 18 helpful votes. This rate is nearly 3 times as good as Klausner’s.

Perhaps the most convincing argument against Klausner’s prolificity are the reviews themselves, a mere overview of the basic plot points. This level of detail would be incredibly easy to fake if you had the book in your hands and the introduction and back matter available to you.

Here’s an example:

“High school history teacher Bill Lewis decides to write a biography of his famous namesake Meriwether Lewis to be completed in time to meet the bicentennial anniversary of the renowned explorer’s suicide, October 11, 1809. Bill researches Meriwether’s interaction with the Burrs, father and daughter, who expected to become the empires of the west when they led the succession from the union. The modern day teacher studies the Lewis and Clark expedition and his subsequent time as governor of the Louisiana Territory. Meriwether meets other famous figures upon his return to DC as he has a hero’s welcome. Eventually he slid into depression and three years after his triumphant return with Clark from the Pacific, broke and addicted, Meriwether killed himself. Meanwhile in the present Bill has family problems caused by his teenage son who refuses to eat. This leads Bill back into clinical depression which jeopardizes his biography and his marriage.

The story line rotates between the modern day subplot and that of the early nineteenth century. Both are well written as readers obtain a sense that besides the same surname, the two Lewis males suffer similar mental problems. Fascinatingly the current Lewis with his everyday family life is the more passionate segue. Somewhat this is so because of the recent focus on the two hundredth anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition to find a Northwest passage so that Meriwether’s emotional collapse and suicide has become well documented abating the impact. Biographical fiction fans will appreciate the comparison between a legend and an everyman; who is the hero depends on who is deciding as Bill’s family might choose him for his efforts to overcome his depression to try to be there for them.

Harriet Klausner

As a result of reviews like this, Klausner seems to be going for quantity over quality. Out of the 49 people who judged her most recent reviews, only 4 found them valuable while 45 did not. That’s a measly 8%.

Whether or not Klausner is reading the books, she’s not helping other people with her reviews, and that’s the whole point of writing them in the first place.

“In the online world, businesses have the opportunity to develop very deep relationships with customers, both through accepting preferences of customers and then observing their purchase behavior over time, so that you can get that individualized knowledge of the customer and use that individualized knowledge of the customer to accelerate their discovery process.

If we can do that, then the customers are going to feel a deep loyalty to us, because we know them so well. And if they switch to a competitive website – as long as we never give them a reason to switch, as long as we’re not trying to charge higher prices or providing lousy service, or don’t have the selection that they require; as long as none of those things happen – they’re going to stick with us because they are going to be able to get a personalized service, a customized website that takes into account the years of relationship we’ve built with them.”

It is easy to see how Amazon’s business strategy is manifested in their design decisions. They build tools that accept and observe preferences (browsing behavior, search queries, wish lists, purchasing history, etc) and design features to take advantage of that knowledge by finding related and closely relevant products.

The design of the entire Amazon web site is explained in these two paragraphs. It is the best example I can find of how strategy affects design.

But, to be fair, not everyone thinks that personalization is good. Many people view it as an invasion of privacy or a distraction. I personally view it as a good thing, as long as my information is safe and Amazon (or whomever I’m dealing with) is not selling it to 3rd parties.

That’s what Yelp.com is doing. A San Francisco-based review site, Yelp has been throwing parties for users of the site they call the “Yelp Elite” in various cities across the country in order to build up buzz.

At first, these parties seem a bit silly (see the Yelp Blog for post-party details). Hosting a party around a site on which you read reviews? Doesn’t sound too exciting. It’s certainly not as compelling as the eBay Live! event, which is put on for people who use the auction site. Those people are definitely motivated to attend, eBay is how they make a living.

But looking more closely at Yelp’s parties we can see a tactical reason why they might be doing this: they need to as a result of the nature of their site.

The best way to build word-of-mouth is to make something personally valuable, so valuable that it is remarkable. But Yelp is not a personal tool that you can use by yourself. In order for it to work, you need thousands and thousands of people contributing, not just writing reviews and submitting ratings but visiting the site and viewing the advertising. Yelp is a big-time attention play. Without tons of people, the site just won’t work. The site can provide value, but only when it reaches a critical mass. So Yelp has to grow fast because their model depends on a huge audience.

Another interesting part of their approach is that the parties are only for members of the “Yelp Elite Squad”. What is an “elite” member? Well, this is how they describe it:

“The Yelp Elite Squad is a crack team of the coolest yelpers. The kind of people who love to write colorful, witty reviews about the places they dig or detest and everything in between. They are the people that tip you off to the little hole in the wall eatery you never knew existed or a doctor you can trust. They are trendsetters and influencers, both on and off the site. We created the Yelp Elite Squad as a way of recognizing these star members.”

Also read the entire Elite Squad page. The copy-writing is interesting, motivating people who see themselves as the central hub of all things cool among their friends. Note that they’re focusing on a certain type of person here…a self-identified yelper.

It doesn’t cost anything to join the Elite Squad, but you must apply to do so. The qualifications are that you have written a lot of helpful reviews, solid profiles, and good pictures of yourself.

When you achieve “elite” status, your profile shows a little icon signifying your membership. This is a nice touch, a simple designation that doesn’t really mean anything other than you have been recognized as a member.

The Elite Squad is leveraging one of the Peter Kollock’s four motivations for contributing: reputation. (see more in my Psychology of Social Design talk) By publicly acknowledging those people who write good reviews, Yelp is creating a win-win situation. Their service gets better while the person has a little higher status in their community. All I have to do to be “elite” is to write a few good reviews? Easy!

Yelp is doing this amazingly cheaply. It’s a super-simple feature, a badge on a profile. The parties they host probably cost some cash, but they’re parties for the people who want to be seen as elite members, so they’re the very audience that Yelp should care most about. In addition, they have sponsors for some events and their parties are probably a good promotion for the venue they’re in. I’m sure any cost for food and drink is outweighed by the benefit of buzz they receive in return.

This feature has a potential downside, however. If the bar to entry is too low, then the “elite” won’t be so elite. I’ve talked to several folks who aren’t all that impressed with the quality of the reviews on the site, and you might ask if some of those are written in order to be an elite member. I’ve noticed that some reviews aren’t particularly helpful, but my guess is that is common on most review sites. (they do have a “is this review useful” feature…but I can’t tell if it works)

The Yelp Elite Squad is an interesting feature. Not only does it add mystery and motivation to being a Yelp member, but its built in such a way as to add value to the site. Those are the best kind of features: the ones in which the motivation is aligned with the site goals.

I’m writing to ask you if you would consider writing an update to your fantastic book Design for Community. Your book, as much as any other, helps to define what it means to create and curate community online. It’s a great book, but it’s a bit old and hard to find.

Web designers the world over, including myself, could really benefit from a 2nd edition. The world we’re designing for is all about community now, the social interactions of people in and around the things they’re passionate about. No longer are we a single person using a web site by ourselves. Now it’s all about multiple people participating, cooperating, and working together in countless ways. Community is a big part of that.

The copy of your book I had been using was at UIE, and since I’m not there everyday any more I don’t have easy access to it.

I tried to get myself a fresh copy of it the other day, and I couldn’t. On the publisher’s site (Peachpit Press) your book is simply not for sale. On Amazon it is unavailable new. Apparently, one of the best books on web design isn’t in print anymore!

You can get a used copy (there are 3 available at Amazon, 6 at AmazonUK), but the cheapest one, at the current moment, costs $98.99. I think the price of those 3 used copies suggests how valuable your book is.

But this isn’t just about money, or getting my hands on a copy of the 1st edition. Since you wrote it in 2001 the landscape of community design has, well, evolved and exploded. But while the content in the 1st edition is solid, it is a bit long in the tooth. You’ve done great work since then, including your excellent work at JPG magazine, and I’m sure you’ve got some great insight that isn’t in the 1st edition. So I actually don’t want a 1st edition…I want a 2nd.

In addition, and to perhaps turn the screw a bit further, I see that you’re not completely away from the book scene, as you’re among the excellent speaking lineup at the Voices that Matter Conference in late October. At the very least you could take the talk you’re giving there, whip it into a chapter, and tack it on at the end of the book and call it a 2nd edition? Or, like they do in the music business call it a Greatest Hits? Pretty please?

Anyway, I don’t speak for everyone, but I will speak for a lot of designers I know who are fans of your book. Please consider writing a 2nd edition!

Humbly yours,

Joshua Porter

This is especially true in social interfaces that model complex social interactions. In some cases there is just no way around it: human relationships are complex and so whatever view we offer into them must have some complexity as well. That doesn’t mean they should be hard-to-use, it just means that they communicate sophisticated information.

Take the reviews on Amazon.com. For years Amazon’s interface showed the average review, so viewers could tell the general mood surrounding a book. If it was a 5 star or a 1 star book, then that would be instantly recognizable.

But over time it became clear that the rating system had a fault: if the average rating was somewhere in the middle, say 3.5 stars, it was unclear whether it was just a dull book that most people rated as mediocre or if it was a polarizing book that half the people rated 5 and half the people rated 1. A political book, for example, usually polarizes.

So the review interface could be made more sophisticated, showing more information about how the reviews for a particular book were distributed. Amazon came up with a nice interface for this:

I’ve talked to many folks who have made positive comments about this interface. They like seeing more information, and it doesn’t confuse them. Instead, they get a more accurate picture of the reviews than they had before, and that helps them make a more informed decision. More is more, in this case.

Client: “Performance metrics, market landscape, product strategy? You don’t sound much like a designer. Shouldn’t we be discussing color options and page templates?”

Designer: “Design is the physical, or in this case digital, manifestation of your product strategy. Of course we could define your customers’ experience with ‘paint by number’. But I think you’d agree we should figure out what you want to say to your customers and why before we dive into how we’re going to say it.”

There are two ways to view Design here.

If you view it as creating interfaces to content, then you might stop short of talking about strategy. Instead, you would focus on how to display what you’ve got. Typography, grids, information hierarchy, big buttons, huge fonts, navigation bars, etc.

The other view that Luke alludes to is one that I believe we are moving toward, necessarily: having the designers in the strategy discussion alongside the “business strategy” people talking about the “what” as well as the “how”. (btw: this is the “strategy” part of the Bokardo Design: Interface design & strategy for social web applications). I would be doing both myself and my clients a disservice if I ignored how their business strategy can drive the design. A designer has done their job well when they have created an honest implementation of that business strategy.

Design is business

Let’s be plain about it: Design is business. We can’t go on with suspicious…accountability. Designers, who excel at making hard things easy to understand through an interface, need to be part of the business discussion. Giving them Word docs and telling them to “make it look good” won’t cut it anymore. There is no accountability there, and worse, at that point much of the potential for really giving users what they need is already lost. If the Word doc is garbage, then no matter what the designer does will fail. Garbage in, garbage out. The scope of possibility is cut down to a narrow fraction of what it could be…of what the designer could come up with if they only had some time to think about how the strategy affects the design. As Peter Merholz says: Experience is the product.

So how does strategy affect design?

Look at Amazon.com. Their strategy is to help people find the best products. If they are successful at doing that then they’ll sell more. They’ve had a million insights along the way, but one of their best ones was that creating tools like wish lists actually helped realize their strategy because it allowed people to remember what they wanted and in doing so caused them to return more often. Allowing users to add comments and ratings let them sift through crucial, unbiased 3rd party information that helps them make better decisions about what’s good or not. And looking at their site from a wider view we see that Amazon has a ton of social features just like these that work to varying degrees. What was a hard problem 10 years ago was made much easier by the amazing work of the Amazon team and their innovation.

I don’t think its the case that strategy isn’t affecting design. It is, it’s just not clear how. Most of the time there is not a direct conversion between the strategy and the interface. The two sides rarely even talk, actually. The strategists are off using terms like “conversion”, “user-generated content”, and “ROI” while the designers are opining about “grid-based design”, “cross-browser rendering”, or “web standards”. These conversations are great within their own culture, but we need to find the middle ground as well, where strategy and design use the same vernacular.

I wholeheartedly agree that design is the manifestation of strategy. In software, it’s the realization of the conversation channels that a company/organization can have with its users/customers. The richness, depth, and value of that conversation is a direct result of the design. Yes, the value of the conversation is a direct result of the design.

To give you an example of where design might adversely affect the conversation, consider the case of Digg.com. As I outlined in Digg’s Design Dilemma, much of the superficiality of the conversations on Digg result from some very critical design decisions they’ve made. This isn’t an accident! It’s a direct result of the design. (Interestingly, in February Digg removed their Top Diggers list)…serving as validation that Digg is aware of the impact these design decisions make.

Another example: every time you hear about Twitter and the job they’re doing there, people say how “simple” the service is. Simple is a great word for your users to use when praising your stuff, as it means that the communication is clear.

Finally, if designers are going to be successful, then our contribution must be measured. If we are to be accountable (and I think we should want to be), then we need responsibility. Handing off…not necessarily creating…but clearly articulating and then handing off your strategy to a designer is how you give them responsibility, not whatever responsibility comes from making something “look good”.

Designers need a place at the strategy table because their work depends on and is a direct result of it. If it’s not already, realizing the business strategy of the organization in an interface should be the designer’s primary job description.

(btw: this full-page screenshot taken with Paparazzi! on the Mac)

With lots of sites “going social” nowadays, Amazon and their amazing array of social features is often overlooked. But the amount of social content on Amazon that is provided and leveraged is astounding…especially for an e-commerce company. If Amazon didn’t have this incredible amount of social commentary, their site would only be a shell of what it is today.