It’s happening slowly, but surely. Design is becoming news.
Take the example of Facebook’s recently redesigned Profile pages. Huge news both for the users of the site as well as the developers Facebook is trying to court. The design decisions made in and around the profile are paramount to the future of Facebook, who is [...]

Continue Reading: The growing importance of Design

There is a lot of “social” talk these days, whether it’s social media, social marketing, or social design. Frankly, it’s hard to keep track of it all. When I get into a discussion with someone on one of these subjects, I rarely know where it will end up…are we talking about social interaction or something [...]

Continue Reading: A simple illustration of social design

Well, Designing for the Social Web has been out for about a month and I’m happy to report that the early reviews are positive. I can’t tell you how nervewracking it is to have a book out there…it’s such a mix of emotions generally…will they find it useful? Will they like it? Will they tell [...]

Continue Reading: Early reviews of Designing for the Social Web are in!

Over time, I’m having more and more conversations about the similarities between interface design and writing. Here’s a great quote from George Orwell, who wrote 1984 and Animal Farm, that made me instantly think of interface design.
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s [...]

Continue Reading: Interface design, writing, and sincerity

It has long been known that savvy restaurants use a bag of tricks to build buzz and interest. One trick is to seat early customers near windows so that people passing by will think the place is full. This has the effect of making the place seem popular as people usually can’t see the empty [...]

Continue Reading: Designing for the Social Web: Signs of Life

A great example of the Usage Lifecycle in practice.
The other day I wrote about the idea that people go through a progression as they use your software, what I call the Usage Lifecycle. I described how Tripit.com was doing a good job at getting people over the hurdle of Sign-up with several really nice features [...]

Continue Reading: More on the Usage Lifecycle: Lifecycle Messaging

The Usage Lifecycle describes how far a person has progressed in using your web application, helping to identify the hurdles someone needs to overcome to become regular, passionate users.
Babycenter.com has a really great newsletter. Once you tell the site when you’re expecting, it sends you a weekly newsletter targeted at the specific stage of pregnancy [...]

Continue Reading: Designing for the Social Web: The Usage Lifecycle

As anybody who has ever read anything knows, the most important part of a book are the quotes sprinkled throughout it. Yes, if you are able to pick the perfect quotes to start your chapters with, then you’ve done the majority of hard work in writing. The words that you write yourself, the other 50,000 [...]

Continue Reading: Douglas Adams on Interactivity

Bootstrapping your niche is easier if you leverage existing motivation.
How do you bootstrap your social site if you’re targeting a group that doesn’t yet use software (or doesn’t seem interested in using software)? While software designers can often see how useful their tool can be, normal users aren’t so prescient. How do you get them [...]

Continue Reading: Bootstrapping a Niche Social Network

The power of niche social sites isn’t just in connecting people, it’s in providing tools that allow people to do something better than they could before…or, the reason why PatientsLikeMe is an amazing web site.
Ravelry.com is a social network site for the “knit and crochet community”.
A site for knitters, you ask? What will [...]

Continue Reading: The Power of Niche Social Network Sites