DtT Ch 7 and 8

Ch. 7 Significance

• This chapter is about making members of your online community feel like they should participate. This is important because people are more likely to join, participate and remain members of communities they view as significant.

The Paradox of Exclusivity

• the community has to make people feel like they are part of the group, but also that they are important within the group
• communities should have a way to for members to participate in order to gain a feeling of exclusivity
• Example: mybarockobama.com only released messages to members of his community, instead of the general public to create this feeling of exclusivity

Acquiring "Social Capital" and Significance

• Example: facebook was at first only for particular colleges' students. This created a desire to be in the group, so when it finally opened to the public it remained successful, unlike other sites that were always open to everyone
• "social capital" is similar to the feeling of exclusivity, but better explains why people want closed communities...they want to have the inside information...it makes the community significant

Quality vs Quantity

• name recognition doesn't equal significance, so it doesn't matter how many people have heard of your community if they don't feel significant
• the quality of relationships with members and potential members of a community is more important
• people have to feel like they are earning social capital by talking to you, making conversation essential to building significance

Using Nodes and Connectors to Start the Conversation

1. connectors: people who seem to know everybody
2. mavens: people that collect information and enjoy distributing it
3. salesmen: people that persuade people to act on the information the mavens distribute

• together, these individuals allow for a few number of links needed in communication in communities

Techniques

• The following techniques are ways that help members of a social network develop a sense of significance in the community

1. provide a story that shares a vision
2. list members' accomplishments
3. participate in influential communities to create trails back to yours
4. build your social network or community in a custom space
5. make connections with other leaders in social media
6. celebrate celebrities
7. create a contest, game or video
8. mobilize your existing members

Chapter 8 Technology Changes Rapidly; Humans Don't

• social networks have the potential to effect economic, political and social changes past what the designers initially want
• The following four areas are likely to be social networking challenges in the future:

1. copyrights and intellectual property
2. disciplinary control vs. individual creativity
3. visual, technological, and new media literacies
4. decision-making contexts for future markets

The Power of Social Media to Effect Change

• Twitter was used for protests, hashtags
• RIBS can be used for designing online communities, as well as to analyze and interpret conversations within the communities

DtT ch 5 and 6

Influence

• This chapter is about designing influence and allowing members to feel a sense of control in the online community. There needs to be a balance between structural boundaries and individual responsibility.

What is influence? It exists in a community when its members believe that they can control or shape the policies, procedures, topics and standards of evidence used to persuade others in an online community or social network.

Why is influence important? Everyone needs to have a feeling of control in order to feel safe and comfortable.

When designing an online community you must:

• understand the influence needs of members
• find a balance between keeping members on task and staying inside reasonable boundaries
• give them the ability to play with the space within those boundaries

Play: the boundaries that members of the community should not go beyond, as well as, the sense of creative freedom and joy.

Types of Members and Need for Influence

There are three classification systems:

1. Li and Bernoff's social technographics ladder

• Creators: create the primary content for a community or network. They must know they are being read and have some impact.
• Critics: comment on the entry creators post. They need feedback that helps them determine how values in the community are lining up.
• Collectors: add value to social networks by sorting content created by creators and critics into ordered and ranked categories. They need to have questions sent to them asking if they have archived information that will benefit the community, and that their collecting behaviors are valued by the community.
• Joiners: have influence by virtue of their profiles that they fill out and complete. They need to see that people view their profiles.
• Spectators: consume what the rest produce. They need to see that creators and critics appreciate the time they invest in reading their posts and blogs.
• Inactives: spend no energy on behalf of the social network and don't participate. They need what the others need, yet the needs aren't met.

2. Kim's membership life cycle model

• Visitors: people without persistent identity in the community
• Novices: new members who need to learn the ropes and be introduced into community life
• Regulars: established members that are comfortably participating in community life
• Leaders: volunteers, contractors and staff that keep the community running
• Elders: long time regulars and leaders who share their knowledge and pass along the culture

3. Wenger's five learning trajectories

• Peripheral trajectories: provide a kind of access to a community and its practice that becomes significant enough to one's identity, but doesn't lead to full participation
• Inbound trajectories: newcomers' identities are invested in their future participation, even though at present their participation may be peripheral
• Insider trajectories: the formation of an identity does not end with full membership because of changes to the community causing continuous renegotiating one's identity
• Boundary trajectories: find their value in spanning boundaries and linking communities of practice. Although challenging, they sustain their identity across boundaries
• Outbound trajectories: these lead out of the community. This demonstrates how a form of participation enables what comes next.

* Trajectories describe the individual's position relative to the community over time. A trajectory maps their temporal relationship to the community's boundaries.

Techniques

These are ways you can ensure that your social network or community meets the influence needs of different members of our group.

1. Set up an advisory council
2. Respond to every concern without administrivia
3. Show the number of times a message has been viewed
4. Have a report a problem on every page of the site
5. Include in your application why they want to join
6. Have exit surveys
7. Run periodic surveys
8. Allow avatars
9. Require profiles
10. Create a visitor's center
11. Put novices with novices
12. Give Elders opportunities
13. Demand respect
14. Publish and enforce safety policies

Belonging

• a sense of one's social presence in a community, and a feeling or awareness of the shared bonds a member has with others in the group
• Belonging is created in a community through shared mythologies, stories of origin, symbols and cultural codes

Initiation Rituals: allow for members of a group to have shared experiences in which they relate to one another

Stories of Origin: help bring members together and show the values of the community

Leveling up Rituals

Initiation rituals allow new members to become apart of a community, but also can allow for levels within membership of a community.

• The upside of these rituals for levels is the celebration and recognition that comes with it, allowing for the opportunity to build community.
• The downside of these rituals is that it can create jealousy between members, and members feel distanced from the community.

Mythologies: shared histories that express values of the community. These are useful to illustrate values and to show desired behavior within the community.

Symbols and Codes: a sense of belonging can also be accomplished through visual and audio elements in design.

• corporate branding

Protocols, Routines, and Schemas: ritualized behaviors that members of a community use to identify and greet other members, and to understand correct behavior to use in different social situations

Techniques

The following techniques are useful in creating a feeling of belonging for online communities:

1. Create and distribute a story of origin
2. Create an initiation ritual
3. Encourage your leaders and elders to share mythologies
4. Encourage members to share myths and stories about themselves
5. Create leveling up ceremonies
6. Establish routines and protocols
7. Establish symbols, colors and visual identities
8. Use a membership application as an initiation ritual

DtT Ch 3 and 4

Why build social networks and communities?

1. To enhance and sustain your intellectual capital: by being in a certain community, you can gain information from well educated and intelligent people, as well as share your own knowledge with other members of the community
2. To increase creativity and cross-fertilization: online communities allow for communication across all different cultures. This creates a less biased account of information because it comes from a variety of perspectives.
3. To preserve institutional knowledge: an online community creates a place where knowledge can be stored and people can easily access it.
4. To provide higher quality interaction with your organization: people are able to come together to talk and share information when one physical time and location is hard for everyone to make.
5. To improve retention and loyalty: an online community provides support for employees, users and clients.
6. To reduce training and support costs: in an online community, users can share ideas and support with each other, allowing for the company to reduce costs in customer support.

Remuneration

• the commonsense observation that individuals remain members of a social network when there is a clear benefit of doing so. People need to feel like they are getting something out of a social network in order to use it.
• Online communities must offer users an experience.

Remuneration Techniques

1. Make the text editor fun; add emoticons
2. Use a subscription application form
3. Mentors Teach
4. Seed the Discussion
5. Use stars on messages to show membership contribution levels
6. Rank the value of members' messages
7. Remove the fear factor by providing examples of how to participate
8. Create a safe environment by sending out "tickle" messages
9. Create a regular event
10. Don't automatically archive
11. Discourage attempts to send conversations to other blogs, web sites, or discussion groups
12. Ban redistribution servers and cross-postings

Design to Thrive Chapters 1 and 2

Chapter 1: Why Design to Thrive

Why Should You Be Interested?

Social networks and online communities have become very popular.

• In 2009, 4 out of 5 online adults visited a social media site at least once a month.

These networks are also a business that have gotten the attention of young entrepreneurs, marketing directors, PR specialists, and Web consultants.

The overall goal of this book is to "help you build successful and sustainable social networks and online communities" because there is a lot of work and thinking that goes into their design (2).

Computers have transformed the way we talked to each other.

• knowledge is more available for research and academic purposes
• it has changed business practices
• allows for communication different groups of people (like academic-industry partnerships)

Just like students benefit from this increased communication, businesses can profit when social networks and online communities are designed effectively.

Five Types of Online Groups Clients Seek

1. Internal project and professional development teams: internal groups of project teams or departments to promote collaboration and professional development. Through this type of online community, people can support each other and think creatively together.
2. Communities of practice: when people that are passionate about their field of work come together to help each other understand the best practices and most recent techniques being used in this particular practice.
3. Networks across disciplinary boundaries: where people can share information despite disciplinary or functional boundaries in order for an organization or group to achieve its goals. It provides them with peer support.
4. Brand communities and user group communities: usually used by public relations and marketing specialists or user support professionals for social networking. User groups allow people to share ideas about ways to use products, and builds customer loyalty. This also benefits customer support because it allows for cost reduction.
5. Gaming communities: These are important because players have to learn to build successful communities or they will fail. They provide a good place to learn to design a successful community.

RIBS: The 4 elements necessary for long-term success

Remuneration: people must feel that they will benefit positively by investing their time into a community, or they won't become involved in that community

Influence: members must feel that they have a voice in the community and that they will be heard

Belonging: the community should have something that lets members identify with one another and to form an emotional feeling of attachment to other members, so that they feel included

Significance: the community has to be respected and be known

RIBS help to guide and analyze design ideas, and allow for a better understanding of why a community or social system is successful.

Chapter 2: The Nature of the Beasts

Social Networks vs. Online Communities

• Developing relationships with others is at the center of both social networks and online communities.
• Both can come in the form of bulletin boards, listserv groups, USENET groups, Second Life communities, FirstClass forums, WoW, etc. However, they are not limited to these and can grow around software that is not web based.

Social networks put individuals at center of relationships

Boyd and Ellison define a social network as "web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system" (13).

• In a community, the user's commitment to the interests and values is most important because it comes before a relationship is developed with other community members.
• Several groups and communities can be in the same network.
• Users can belong to several groups within a network.

The strength of connections is different

• The secondary connections of social networks are weak. For example, users of google probably have little in common except that they use google.
• In communities, since members are committed to the goals of the group, they cooperate and have more in common with other members.

Differences in the strength of relationships creates difference in activities

More in-depth activities can happen in communities than in social networks because of these secondary connections.

Sharing, cooperation and collective action are the three organizational categories involved in supporting an activity by a group.

• Sharing is the least complex because it involves little effort. It simply means to inform others of an available space to collaborate.
• Cooperation involves putting together different responsibilities and roles in order for a task to be carried out. This requires lines of communication, so different individuals can work on their own towards a common goal.
• Collective action deals with large organizational structures that make binding agreements.

What is an online community compared to lists, discussion groups or forums?

According to Preece an online community is:

• people, who interact socially as they strive to satisfy their own needs or perform special roles, such as leading or moderating
• A shared purpose, such as an interest, need, information exchange, or service that provides a reason for the community
• policies, in the form of tacit assumptions, rituals, protocols, rules and laws that guide people's interactions
• computer systems, to support and mediate social interaction and facilitate a sense of togetherness

Online groups aren't automatically communities

While email lists, news groups, bulletin boards and web forums share many characteristics with communities, they also lack many things a community has.

• they can't establish purpose between one another
• they don't describe the relationship between the people
• they don't layout guidelines of the treatment of one another
• they don't have traditions, histories, and other characteristics that make them unique

Overall, it is important to see that a community provides more to its users than just communication.

Community vs. adhocracy

Communities are also often confused with adhocracies. These are when a group is formed to solve a problem that eventually gets resolved. An adhocracy is not built to last, and is, therefore, not a community.

Chapter 9 Questions

Chapter 9

Supra-Level Elements: Designing for Usability

Supra-Level design is the largest scale visual language of documents, print or electronic. These elements are those that coordinate, overarch and unify all of the other levels to create the whole document.

• major headings
• tabs/dividers
• size
• shape
• color of page or screen

Supra-level elements are critical in determining a document's usability.

Example: By adopting the conventional paper size and stock for a business card two supra-level design choices are made that help its usability.

It is also important to consider how the document will be distributed to readers (mailed, computer screen?), the context in which readers use it (home, work?) and the amount of time readers have to look at it when choosing supra-level design elements

In many cases readers are looking to use a text, rather than read it. So supra-level elements such as headers, tabs, field size and texture, color patterns and field borders help to make information easily accessible.

• The consistent cover page, section headings, and page color of an organization over several years make readers comfortable because of this supra-level cohesion. Catalogs and brochures tend to use similar layouts so readers are used to the design.

The web is very focused on supra-level design because it allows linking unlimited fields of information across space and time.

The supra-level design as makes the first impression.

Process Example

Elaine needs to re-design her agency's annual report so that readers will want to explore and use it. Her goal is to design a more attractive and usable document.

First Elaine analyzes the rhetorical situation.

• Audience: a wide range of educational levels and interests, public and private including donors, board members, state officials, interested public, city planners, engineers and farmers
• Purpose: to inform readers about data and findings, and persuade them to continue to donate
• Context: most readers will get this document in the mail, but occasionally it will be used at small group meetings

In order to re-design the document Elaine must invent, revise and edit.

Invention: place headings in margins, use facing 11x17 pages for a more professional look and better spacial cohesion, use recycled paper

Revision: emphasizes boundaries between sections, introduces sections with bold titles and a box, adds lines and pages numbers in footer, adds internal tab on edge of page, adds key words to tabs, uses agency's logo, centers title of document

Editing: adds blue spot color throughout, mats behind pictures, changes color of title page to light blue

Vocabulary of Supra-Level Elements

Textual Elements: they initiate new sections of text and provide cohesion among text fields. They also set the theme and create a certain tone.

• Titles on cover sheets
• section headings
• initial letters
• tabs
• navigation bars
• headers/footers
• background text

Conventions include headers and footers, or a standard cover page for a particular corporation. These allow for cohesion between documents as a series.

Spatial Elements: on the supra-level have a major impact on the size, scope and structure of a communication. This includes how a paper document is physically contained (in a folder, laminated?). Supra-level spacial elements provide the basic framework onto which a designer arranges textual and graphic elements.

• size of paper/screen
• orientation of paper/screen
• folded, trimmed or attached
• inserts
• shape (can help to attract attention)
• thickness of surfaces (paper or cardstock, etc.)
• on the web: single screen or is scrolling necessary?
• web links

Conventions include the typical size of paper used (8.5x11) or the small size of a business card. On the web usually pages conform to the width of the screen.

Graphic Elements: can create boundaries between text sections, give the document cohesion, and express a theme or mood. They give the communication shape and structure.

• lines
• shading
• borders
• frame data displays/pictures
• background color, texture, glossiness

Conventions include the ornate borders often used on awards, or the common use of semi-gloss paper for an annual report.

*Textual, spatial and graphic coding modes all work together to produce a successful document.

Applying the Cognate Strategies

Supra-level design is a process of rhetorical adaptation, striving for the best fit with readers, purpose, and context.

• Arrangement: routes readers to points of interest by giving a quick map identifying the key units and subunits, creating cohesion among them. Dividers and shaded pages can help to arrange your page.
• Emphasis: points readers to selected places in the communication through things like bolding and section headings.
• Clarity: can greatly enhance by making the purpose clear through giving users easy access to information.
• Conciseness: designers have to be careful not to overindulge and create too many variations that end up misdirecting readers.
• Tone: immediately give the document a voice (serious, playful, trivial, calm, objective)
• Ethos: is influenced by supra-level design because it decides if readers believe a document is honest and if the author is reliable.

Chapter 8 Questions

1.

a.) The drawing serves the purpose to show how to attach new windshield wipers when replacing old ones.

b.) The drawings do use conventions. The spatial conventions include blowup and exploded view, and the graphic convention included is boundaries in order to separate the parts. Readers are likely to understand these conventions because they serve a purpose and readers will be able to differentiate the parts being used.

c.) I think the cognate strategies could be used better because this drawing looks more complicated than it really is. I think without following the text, the drawing is somewhat confusing.

• Arrangement is okay because the directions show several pictures in order of how to put the wipers on. There is a lot of emphasis on the location where the wiper is actually attached which is also good because that is the area the person is going to be working with.
• The clarity could be improved probably by enlarging the pictures or leaving out some of the detail of the surrounding parts. Conciseness is okay because the conventions are used like blow up and exploded view to emphasize the areas that are being worked with.
• The tone seems relatively user friendly, although also intimidating without the text. Ethos could be improved by making the picture look more professional in order for readers to have more confidence that these directions will work.

3. The lines pointing to the brackets need to be clearer, the spatial orientation, the size.