Designing Social Interfaces

Chapter 2. Social to the Core

The Web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect—to help people work together—and not as a technical toy.

—Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web (1999)

In A Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander explains the purpose of pattern languages in part by saying that they are about imbuing built spaces with “the quality without a name.” There is something, often something ineffable, about some architectural spaces that make them inviting, warm, humane, comfortable, healthy, and alive. Analyzing these spaces may tell us that the seating area is built on a good scale or that the lighting helps foster small group conversations, but underlying these granular design decisions are some higher-order principles that can be applied across the board.

Metaphorically, online social spaces operate similarly. A well-designed sign-up flow will have a real, direct impact on whether people feel invited and encouraged to join and capable of doing so. That may be one specific interface you will need to define for your site. But internalizing some higher-level principles first can help you make better design decisions as you get down to the details.

So before delving deeply into all of the specific design decisions you’re going to make when creating a new site or application, it can be helpful to take a step back and think about what underlying principles will help make your project successful. Consider the example in Figure 2-1. How can ...