From Thought 2 Web A Brain Blog

When you design social applications that revolve around communities, your greatest goal is to design for ongoing participation. After you’ve surpassed the initial hurdle of having users signup for your service, you naturally need to figure out how to keep them coming.

Many social websites have suffered from “social fade”, or the eventual drop of regular visitors after they’ve used the software for a period of time. Friendster, one of the first social networks, experienced significant social fade due its lack of design directed to ongoing participation. After users created an account and connected with their old friends, there was nothing left to do. The site grew stale and interest waned. In direct contrast, Facebook makes use of the effective “social stream” or “life stream” that users see when they first log in. The social stream changes periodically, displaying the activity of Facebook users, and keeping each user’s individual homepage fresh with dynamic content. If you’re designing social software you want this – badly. But how can designers design in a way that will keep people coming back? How can we motivate our users to participate every day?

The first step you need to conduct is to define the basic motivational model for users of your software. At this stage, you must determine the 2 or 3 core motivations of your users. Are users using your software to connect with others as in Facebook? Are they using the software to get recommendations on products, like on Amazon? Or do users simply want to connect and exchange with other users in the marketplace, like on Ebay? Step one, figure out what your users want and why they should be coming back for more.

Now let’s think about some of the possible reasons people participate in social web sites. One of the key reasons is to build reputation. The social web is about social capital, it’s about contribution, it’s about how many people you are connected with, etc. You don’t go to LinkedIn just to search for a job. You go to LinkedIn to connect with colleagues, present your resume and credentials, and establish a positive reputation through recommendations you received from your colleagues. But what are some of the other reasons users participate on the web? Users may want to:

1. Establish their identity within their social groups
2. Make a contribution that is valuable and unique
3. Give back to the community
4. Make a positive effect
5. Own their content online
6. Be around others who share the same ideas and values
7. Have fun

Since you’ve determined the motivational model for your users, acknowledging some of the key reasons people participate on the web, you want to design an interface that supports these motivations. You want to implement designs that support the motivations of users in a logical and applicable manner. What are your next steps?

The first thing you should establish is enabling the identity of a user. The user has to create some sort of account within your software which will allow him to have a conversation with someone, establish a reputation, and serve as a general reference point. Identity can also control bad behavior such as spamming, gaming, trolling, and other forms of deception. By creating an account, a user will need to create a profile page, but it’s important to make sure the profile page fits the domain of the software. Information like eye color, height, sexual interests etc. don’t fit the profile domain of LinkedIn. But information like job history, skills, and years of experience certainly do fit the domain of LinkedIn. Make sure that any information you request and display fits the domain of the software you are creating. You also want to make sure you don’t copy Facebook or MySpace. General purpose social software already exists in abundance, so don’t copy – serve a niche and design your interface accordingly.

To prevent social fade, you need to show what’s happening. Profiles alone grow old quickly. Show what your users are doing using your software. A social stream which aggregates latest activity is a great way of displaying dynamic content. A comment wall is also frequently used. Current status and notifications are all other great ways of keeping content fresh.

You’ll want to personalize as much as possible. People like to see themselves as unique and you should cater to that. Netflix does a great job of this through its “Netflix Movies For You” function. It makes recommendations of new movies to rent based on your history of reviews, likes/dislikes, and other movies you’ve rented. You get a personalized selection whenever your visit Netflix.

Leveraging reciprocity is another way to engage users. When a user scans Yelp’s restaurant reviews, he immediately realizes the benefits. Yelp then gives the user the chance to reciprocate by giving nudging the user to “be the critic” and write a review. LinkedIn does something similar after you’ve written a recommendation. After writing a recommendation, the receiver of the recommendation is prompted to return the favor. Both sites make excellent use of reciprocity.

As I mentioned earlier, creating a good reputation is a key way to bring people back to your site or network. Ultimately, reputation has to come from others which makes it an unbiased source of information. What are some features that can help a user generate reputation? Some of these features may include:

1. Number of friends
2. Quantity and quality of reviews written
3. Quantity of comments written from other users
4. Quantity of fans
5. Number of “firsts” (On Yelp.com, “firsts” are the first reviews received by a business, and you get bonus points for writing the first review)
6. Number of recommendations
7. Groups you’re affiliated with

In some cases reputation is absolutely critical for a transaction to take place. Case in point, eBay. Buyers and Sellers never meet each other in the flesh, so some sort of initial trust must be established via a seller’s reputation. eBay is a successful reputation system based on what they call a “Feedback Score”. After a transaction has been made, a buyer and seller both provide feedback on the experience of the transaction, which consists of either a positive, negative, or neutral rating (plus a short comment). If your feedback score is high, then more people are likely to bid on your items. If your score is too low you won’t be receiving much business. Each user can affect another user’s feedback score by only one point. So, one user can’t affect your score much, but collectively the score speaks volumes about your reputation.

There are many more aspects to social design that will bring your users back. After stressing the important of establishing the motivations of your users I’ve pointed out a few of the more important aspects of effective social design. After providing a mechanism of establishing identity for your users, you can focus the next factors that contribute to effective social participation design such as reciprocity, personalization, and reputation. Over time, you will have refined your software to harness these crucial elements of effective social software design.