Hi Adrian, I think we're more in agreement than not. I agree SNA isn't sufficient to ascertain/describe user behaviors (for the same reasons you state, as I mentioned in my original reply), but it may provide an interesting way to begin segmenting behaviors.
I totally agree that social behavior is largely informed by motivations, subconscious and otherwise. Classic personas *can* capture these motivations, but you bring up an interesting point: classic Cooper personas identify 3 types of goals: End goals, that describe user expectations around direct outcomes of using a product, experience goals, which describe user expectations around the act of using the product, and life goals, which describe broader motivations that may inform user behaviors regarding a product (Note BTW that standard persona goals are often not consciously considered by the users who have them; there is a large psychological component to persona goals of all designations.) Your valid point is that interpersonal concerns -- which are key to social interaction -- do not neatly fit into this structure. One could in a stretch lump them into experience goals by considering the interaction with humans an epiphenomenon of interacting with a social application, but that seems like an inversion of priority. Perhaps social applications require personas to incorporate a discrete set of *interpersonal *or* social * *goals*, which describe user expectations and concerns in mediated interaction with other humans, to inform design. It's an interesting idea... even if it perhaps isn't sufficient to address the complete issue. There's obviously a body of social research and user observation that could be brought to bear in defining those social goals in context. Robert. Robert Reimann IxDA Seattle Associate Creative Director frog design Seattle, WA On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 3:32 PM, adrian chan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Robert, > Thanks for your engaging response. I see SxD as a subspecies of, but not > identical to IxD. Simply because the interaction is user : software : user > (not user : software). There are two or more subjects involved, not one, and > this sets up the necessity (theoretically) for a paradigm based on human > communication and social interaction, not human - machine interaction. In > the latter, there is one dimension of contingency in "meaning," that is the > individual user's intention, motive, and resulting behavior. But in mediated > social interaction, there is a double contingency (this term is straight out > of linguistics), which is to say that the subject can anticipate the other > subject's interpretation to his/her acts, and takes these into account. > There would be no "etiquette" or "social practices," rituals, etc online if > each of us were not attuned to what's going on and how to behave, > *socially.* > > I have enormous respect for Cooper and for personas, but again, I think > they're misapplied if used in social media interaction design. i don't think > user behavior is dictated by lifestyle choices, etc, but by proximate > communication and interaction motives. Some of these aren't even conscious > to the user -- such as self-esteem, flirtation, popularity, and so on. Users > have psychological interests, in themselves, in how they look to others, in > what they believe others think of them, in others, in an audience at large, > and so on -- and these transcend lifestyle choices. Users also have moods, > attitudes, dispositions, and these cannot be accounted for in lifestyle > preferences for they shift and change, and again, transcend lifestyle. > > Personally, I think Clay Shirky is a rockstar and his work and > presentations are fantastic. But I don't think we can explain behavior by > social network analysis (SNA). And SNA would be the first to admit that as a > theory it treats the user (or node) as a black box. One can describe and > observe social networks by graphing nodes and edges, but the view taken > explains phenomena as constrained by network relations -- it doesnt describe > motivations, intentionality, or experience. > > To get to experience, speaking strictly theoretically, you have to have a > theory of consciousness or mind, or "subjectivity" -- that's not treated by > SNA. > > You're absolutely right that connectedness plays a part in the behavior of > users in social networks. But it's not adequate, in and of itself, to > describe user experience. We would need to map the tools we can use to > observe, track, and measure activity (objective model) with a subjective > framework for the framing and proceeding of mediated interactions. > > cheers! > adrian > > > > > > On Oct 14, 2008, at 9:55 PM, Robert Reimann wrote: > > Adrian, > > Thanks for your post and link to a thoughtful article. > > In some respects, the idea of SxD reminds me of the beginnings of the web, > when IA was touted as a new field that reflected the unique aspects of > design for this new medium. But those of us who had been doing IxD before > the web realized that this was not really the case: designing for the web > had unique constraints due to available technology: our prediction was that > as web technology improved, IA and IxD would become nearly > indistinguishable, which is close to where we are now. > > So what of SxD? Well, I have to admit that, like Juan, I am skeptical of > most of the differences you seek to draw. The methods and principles of IxD > discussed in About Face and other volumes hold up, I believe, quite well in > social software contexts, assuming that you understand the user behaviors > and motivations. The challenges of identifying user behavior patterns > (personas) for consumer social networking applications are the same as > those > for any consumer software: behavior is dictated by lifestlye choices, which > can be difficult to nail down compared to enterprise applications, where > business roles are usually well-defined and user behaviors have a > relatively > close mapping to them. > > That said, your observations about Facebook behavior patterns are quite > interesting, and highlight something that may be unique about social > networking applications: significant usage patterns may perhaps be > described > almost mathematically by the relationships between nodes in the network. > Clay Shirky described this for blogs years ago in this article: > > http://shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html > > His observation is basically that connections in the network determine blog > site "behavior" and influence in the blogosphere. When blogs attract large > numbers of incoming links, the nature of those blogs tends to change to > that > of a broadcast medium. Blogs with low numbers of incoming links remain more > conversational. > > I think this basic idea can be generalized to all social networks: there > seem to be 3 basic states for a node in a social network as defined by its > connectivity: it can have many more incoming connections than outgoing, > many > more outgoing than incoming, or roughly equal incoming and outgoing > connections. In addition, there is a continuum of total connections, from > few to many. Applying this to your Facebook example, your self-oriented > users would have more incoming connections (viewers) than outgoing. Your > other-oriented would have the reverse; they would primarily be > viewing/touching other nodes. Your relation-oriented would have roughly > equally interactions with others. I think that the differences in > connection > volumes may be another interesting dimension for you to explore there in > term of behaviors and motivations. To me this is all fascinating because of > the possibility of intuiting a set of behavior patterns from what amounts > to > a mathematical model, which is obviously not a typical approach to persona > creation. Of course, while it may describe WHAT people are doing, it > doesn't > detail WHY, which is where qualitiative user research and more typical > persona development would come into the picture. > > So, my conclusion? Social networks are interesting because some of the > behavior of the system is dependent on the topology of the network. That is > certainly a difference from unitary application design, but is it enough to > call SxD its own field? I'm not certain, but I don't think so. But it is at > the very least an area of IxD that is ripe for exploration. > > Robert. > > Robert Reimann > IxDA Seattle > > Associate Creative Director > frog design > Seattle, WA > > > On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 5:22 PM, adrian chan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Folks, > > > It's been a long while since I posted here, but wanted to solicit feedback > > on this brief intro to Social Interaction Design (design for social media) > > > > > http://www.gravity7.com/blog/media/2008/10/social-interaction-design-primer.html > > > It's a short piece on how social interaction design differs from > > conventional UI and user experience design, and in it I attempt an overview > > of the three kinds of user and three modes of the social interface. > > > All feedback welcome -- in comments or here! > > > thanks! > > > > adrian chan > > > 415 516 4442 > > Social Interaction Design (www.gravity7.com) > > Sr Fellow, Society for New Communications Research (www.SNCR.org) > > LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/adrianchan) > > > ________________________________________________________________ > > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > > > cheers, > > adrian chan > > 415 516 4442 > Social Interaction Design (www.gravity7.com) > Sr Fellow, Society for New Communications Research (www.SNCR.org) > LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/adrianchan <http://www.SNCR.org/>) > > > > > > > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... 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