Also, discount code! Use the code bokardo to get 10% of the registration price.

Designing for Social: 3 Core Principles

My talk is going to be about three core principles of social design, the ones that really matter whether you’re building a social network or considering “adding social” to your current product/service. These principles are not nice-to-haves or simply ideas to get philosophical about…they affect every design decision you make from what features to have to how to lay out a page. I’ve got lists of hundreds of principles, psychological angles, game mechanics, you-name-it, but these three stand out…they are the ones that keep coming back.

If you’ve read my stuff at all you know that one of these is The Delicious Lesson, on which I dashed off a quick post on years ago but then grew a life of its own and has continually come up on nearly every project I’ve worked on. (it’s still the most popular article on bokardo.com four years later). It’s really taken on a life of its own…I’ve actually been introduced as the guy who came up with the Delicious Lesson! (I’m not kidding). It’s odd to be sure…but that signals to me that the principle really helps people think about and design social software. So, I’m going to tell the story of that lesson and show how it applies to some newer software as well as talk about two other principles that are just as important. So I’m excited about the talk, to say the least.

I’m also excited about the conference because I think it is the right topic at the right time: an awesome intersection of designers and businesses…which is exactly what both need right now. Businesses are realizing that Design is a major differentiator while designers are realizing the power of the work they do, but also the need to quantify and pay attention to metrics.

The conference is presented by 500 Startups, the brainchild of Dave McClure who is spear-heading the idea of design as a differentiator. I’ve been a fan of Dave’s for a long time…check out his talk on metrics for startups and you’ll see why. Incidentally, Dave’s work around metrics dovetails very nicely with my work around the Usage Lifecycle.

The speaker list is ridiculous…I’m extremely honored to be speaking with these folks. In particular, I’m excited to hear what Irene Au from Google and Kate Aronowitz from Facebook are going to talk about…given that they’re in very senior design! positions at two of the strongest companies in the world right now, both working hard on social and both competing in various ways.

Anyway, remember the discount code (bokardo) and I hope to see you at the conference!

My co-panelists are awesome designers: Emily Chang and Max Keisler of Ideacodes, and Daniel Burka, creative director at Digg. Thank you Emily for organizing the panel!

This is the official description of the panel:

“Now that social networks are pervasive and quickly becoming a regular feature set, designers need to understand the dynamics of creating experiences that encourage social behavior and public expression, while giving individuals a sense of privacy, personal gain, and ownership. This session will take an in-depth look at the principles and practices of social design. How do you create a symbiotic relationship between people and data that maximizes discovery, game-play, connections, and communication? We’ll examine a breadth of examples and explore their pros and cons. Then, we’ll take a look into the future of what’s possible. You’ll hear firsthand from a group of designers who do this every day.”

Since we had to write out that description a while ago, it’s not totally accurate. So here’s what we’re actually doing:

Each of us is going to tackle a really hard problem in social design. We’ll talk about the problem and some strategies for solving it, pointing to real-world screen flows and interfaces. These are not challenges you’ve never heard of. They are challenges that affect everyone building social sites. Examples of challenges might be: How to add an element of fun to your social web app, How to prevent gaming [Daniel can take that one ], How to roll out features that straddle the privacy line, and How to measure your success.

We’re really trying to focus on providing a solid set of practical techniques to overcoming widespread, hard problems. My experience with SXSW in the past has been that talks are all over the place in terms of being useful…if there is one thing we’re trying to do it’s describe useful, practical techniques to overcome these problems.

The social design strategy panel is Sunday morning at 10am.

Hope to see you there!