There are so many aspects to designing for the web, and few of them have to do with pretty colors or flashy graphics. Even though I’m not a designer, even code-pushers have to consider the many areas of design these days.
In addition to graphic design (look and feel) and interaction design (interface and usability), there’s often social design. This summer at Webvisions, Rashmi Sinha said to let people feel the presence of others.
Luke Wroblewski has some notes from a talk at Web App Summit about Learning from social Web Applications. Something that really jumped out at me:
Sites with good social design model the social lives, goals, and interactions of their users.
In other words, you have to emulate real life. There’s a breakdown of the many elements of social design:
motivation, identity, control, independence, privacy, authority, gaming, community, and emergence.
Read the whole thing to find out the details of each element.
I think it is safe to assume that when people create things they just need to do 1 thing
“keep it real”
=)
I have the impression that social design is only associated with designing the web for people in means of communication. However, social design has a deeper meaning. Social design aims at highlighting different aspects of our social world. Design, in this sense, is any circumstance that is a result of action. This broad definition also implicates that design can be unconscious. It is there whether we are aware of it or not. It is inescapable. Social design, then, is at the same time a great opportunity and a great responsibility because it relies on the choices we make every day. It is the perception of a man-made reality that consequently can only be changed by man.
That can be social design and Internet is a tool to spread the change.
Hi Aneta,
I agree that design is unconscious. It’s impossible to have “no design.” In that sense, social design is always there, but we just don’t always do a good job of it.
To me, doing it well is about emulating the interactions that are already happening, and making new ones easier.