a notion of social taste

Xianhang Zhang

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The biggest influence on the design process is whether the software you are building is social in nature or not.

And we as a design community have not yet come to realize this.

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The primary goal with non-social software is to get something done

We are primarily concerned with issues of usability and efficiency

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I want to make an attractive image

I want to produce a

good report

The primary goal of social software is to convince someone of something

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I’m a cool guy who does cool things with my cool friends

The primary goal of social software is to convince someone of something

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I want you to know I just graduated

The primary goal of social software is to convince someone of something

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Traditional HCI is concerned with the relationship between the person and the computer:

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Interaction

Social software must view the machine as a conduit for communication

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Communication

Interaction Interaction

If you’re only focusing on the Interaction Design, you’re only solving a minor part of the problem

Social software is a conduit for conducting social relationships

But it is not the only conduit Every conduit has a set of policies For social software, the policies are

enforced by code But other policies exist as well, enforced in

other ways

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Social software must be studied in the context of use

Testing Social Design early is very difficult Bringing users into a lab doesn’t work Healthy policy can only come about through

good design Social software is “alive” The slate can’t be wiped clean and restarted If you make a mistake, you’ll have to live

with it

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There is a wide disparity in technical skills which makes interface design very tricky

Luckily, there is a much narrower disparity in social intelligence

There is potential for cognitively complex social tools if this intelligence is leveraged correctly

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Social Design◦ Theory of Mind◦ Implicatures◦ Structure of Spaces◦ Dunbar’s Number◦ Self Presentation◦ Social Capital

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Maxim of Quality◦ Do not say what you believe to be false.◦ Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of Quantity◦ Make your contribution as informative as is required for

the current purposes of the exchange.◦ Do not make your contribution more informative than is

required. Maxim of Relation

◦ Be relevant. Maxim of Manner

◦ Avoid obscurity of expression. ◦ Avoid ambiguity. ◦ Be brief. ◦ Be orderly.

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We generally tend to follow these maxims Resolving conflicts with implicatures “She has a great personality” What we could have said but didn’t is

important to interpreting meaning

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Receiving a friend request from someone you don’t consider a friend can be highly awkward

Reject? Accept? Ignore? Some solutions I’ve seen:

◦ Ignore the request for over a year◦ Declare you’ve “forgotten your password” and

create a brand new profile (MySpace) Is this a problem that can be fixed with

design?

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Click Add as Click Add as FriendFriend

RejectRejectIgnorIgnoree

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Rejecting a friend request is awkward because it requires an action

If I reject, I know that you can see that I rejected you

I know that you’ll try and figure out why I would reject you (implicature)

I know you know that I know a rejection is an implicature

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Click Add as Click Add as FriendFriend

IgnorIgnoree

RejectRejectClick Add as Click Add as

FriendFriendClick Add as Click Add as

FriendFriendA friend request has been sent to John Fox.

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I know that you can’t know whether I’ve rejected you

I know that if you try and find out, you risk sending me another friend request

I know getting another friend request would be an implicature

I know you know me getting a friend request would be an implicature

Therefore, I feel safe rejecting the friend request

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We behave according to our Theory of Mind models

We can use Theory of Mind to predict the social implications of our design

Social Design is not modular and decomposable

Features affect the implications of other features

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Cognitive limits on size of social groupings Derived from empirical correlations of neo-

cortex size in animals Limit is ~12 people Limit is ~150 people Other limits exist at higher scales

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We behave differently at different scales Social mechanisms are not scalable Different social mechanisms are most

effective at different scales Multiple scales can reside in the same

software (cliques) Designing for multiple scales is a difficult

problem

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1920: Modernist Urban Planning◦ “the elimination of disorder, congestion and the small

scale, replacing them instead with preplanned and widely spaced freeways and tower blocks set within gardens.”

◦ Abstract, “ideal” notions of the usage of space 1960: New Urbanism

◦ Reaction against the hubris of modernism◦ Designers were studying how people actually use

space

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What insights can we borrow?◦ Spaces need to be watched and maintained◦ Use signals & decorations to convey the purpose

of a space◦ Highlight, not hide pathological behaviors

What techniques can we borrow?◦ Study actual use, not imagined use◦ Decompose complex structures into patterns

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Project on rethinking privacy and access control

Access is granted based on the ability to answer a question

eg: “What is my favorite place to go rock climbing”

Previous privacy settings were always at a per user basis, but this is not how people behave

Currently in development, preliminary beta due Sept

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We have multiple facets of our personality Which facets are expressed depends on the

audience and the context Mixing facets causes tension and anxiety

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Origins in 1970’s Sociological theory One of the major non-economic forms of

capital Analogous to “reputation” in online

communities Largely tacit

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Reputation Systems

Google’s social networking site. Incredibly popular in Brazil and India Why?

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Social Capital can be an enormously powerful social tool

Not just reputation systems Huge implications for Enterprise 2.0

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Social Design has been sadly ignored by the HCI community

We need to establish it as a separate discipline from Interaction Design

Social Design is hard in many ways We can get a big head start by borrowing

theories from other fields Empirical validation will be tricky Developing a field of Social Design is an

urgent priority, this is too important to wait!

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