Designing Social Interfaces, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1. Mommy, What’s a Social User Experience Pattern?

I have a dream for the Web... and it has two parts. In the first part, the Web becomes a much more powerful means for collaboration between people. I have always imagined the information space as something to which everyone has immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create. Furthermore, the dream of people-to-people communication through shared knowledge must be possible for groups of all sizes, interacting electronically with as much ease as they do now in person.

—TIM BERNERS-LEE, WEAVING THE WEB (1999)

A Little Social Backstory...

SOCIAL DESIGN FOR INTERACTIVE digital spaces has been around since the earliest bulletin-board systems. The most famous being The Well (1985), which was described by Wired magazine in 1997^[1] as “the world’s most influential online community” and predated the World Wide Web and browser interfaces by several years.

The Well

The Well began in 1985 on a Digital Equipment Corporation VAX system and a series of modems. Conceived by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant, Brand had a simple idea: “take a group of interesting people, give them the means to stay in continuous communication with one another, stand back, and see what happens.” He also had the idea that a community created online through written dialogue could be strengthened through offline, face-to-face meetings, and he set out to combine the two quite successfully.

From the 1997 Wired article: “But probably the most important ...