UxSTATION

Also, we have two passes to give away to entrepreneurs who want to attend the conference. Ping info@uxstation for details!

UxStation Featured Talent (speaking engagements only)

“Digital altruism and the riddle of anonymous online samaritans”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Joshua Porter’s presentation on The Psychology of Social Design at last year’s User Experience Week. (I know that was a year ago, but I’ve been busy changing diapers ). Anyway, August heat has me flashing back to DC and thinking specifically about Porter’s belief that “Personal Value Precedes Network (Social) Value” and that most people aren’t “selfish” but self-interested. Though it may seem obvious, this maxim is incredibly important and is one of the first things we forget when building a new social networking site or even feature.

I like to apply this simple test: if only one user uses this feature, will it still offer value? If I upload my pictures of my vacation to Flickr and then send the link to family and friends, if I get zero traffic from Flickr itself or any of its networking features, it is still an excellent way to get my pictures on the web and easier than building even the simplest of personal photo galleries. Obviously once I start tagging my pictures, writing appropriate titles, joining groups, etc. the experience becomes even richer and my pictures are seen by even more people. But the core value of an online photo management tool remains the same. Flickr is aware of this, in fact it’s the first point of their mission statement.

Ok, everything is pretty straightforward up to this point. People like to look out for number one. Got it. Porter goes onto to talk about how to make the jump to social features once individual value has been met, and he summarizes Kollock’s Motivations for Contributing, which are also tied up with individual needs like reciprocity and the need to be a part of a group.

Again, sounds good but here’s the thing: if you, dear reader, followed the link above you’ll have seen a nice little site called Wikipedia. Nice right? Joking aside, try as I might I can’t seem take all of the self-interest inherent to the above theories and make it jive with a site like Wikipedia. My first thought that it was simply a question of volume, volume, volume: just as Porter says, most people are self-interested but “most” means that there are some people that aren’t self-interested. So then maybe it’s just a question of volume, volume, volume. I mean get a few million visitors per day and you’re bound to find a few kind souls who will add contribute without the promise of reciprocity. This also jives with research pointed out by Jakob Nielsen and Eduardo Manchon which talks about a ratio of 1 content creator for every 100 content browsers.

The thing is that unless you buy great amounts of traffic or artificially motivate (prizes, money, etc.) the 1:100 ratio will only work once you have lots of users and lots of traffic. Yet at some point Wikipedia like all sites was small and as far as I know (if anyone else has more info please, please leave a comment to this post) they’ve always worked as an non-profit and have never paid to create content. That means that just like with the big bang there had to be some special initial spark to set off all of this exponential growth. And in the case of Wikipedia where anonymous sources are the norm, the spark couldn’t have been just ego or reciprocity. It had to be something altruistic, some need beyond our basic self-interest. Something noble and necessary that may not touch everyone, but touches enough people to get the ball rolling.

This deep need is what I define as digital altruism. Altruism because it’s all about the self-interest defying need to move outside of the market space that dominates more and more of our lives, to do something that feels big and important and doesn’t just serve ourselves, our employers and the system. Digital because thanks to the combination of new technologies that facilitate easy, delocalized communication and new sites which make contributing easy, fun and rewarding (I see what I’ve contributed) I can be altruistic from anywhere, at anytime, thus allowing me to balance my altruistic needs with my self-interest (work, family, leisure).

Digital altruism is a real need and it is at a heart of any successful social learning web site. Once you are aware of it’s existence, it’s easy to come up with a number of specific ways to use it in social web sites:

Focus first on digital altruism, mo matter how much money you have to potentially go after users’ self-interest (cash, prizes, etc.).

Ask yourself “How does this site allow users to contribute to the greater good?” There are many ways to contribute, it could be by entertaining people, teaching them, advising or even just sharing beauty.

Find ways to combine other needs like reciprocity and recognition/reputation with digital altruism.

Digital altruism can exist in an anonymous setting, but it doesn’t have to. Combining noble aspirations with the “ego needs” of your users is just fine. Just make sure never to let the self eclipse the good. You could end up with a whole lot of primadona users, each more self-centered than the next.

Altruism must be more than just a slogan on your site, it must be part of your mission as well.
We can’t all start foundations and we want to make money as companies and as professionals. But if we incorporate altruism into our own companies mission and it’s a core value for our team, it will show up on the web site itself. No one wants to feel like they are working for free for some company, but if they detect shared altruism then, even if it’s unconscious, they will feel more comfortable.

Be careful, users are not stupid and eventually the blogosphere reveals all. Don’t try and fake altruism, users will be able to smell it and you will eventually pay a price.

As you’ve no doubt seen in the title of this blog, dear reader, digital altruism is a concept that I plan on discussing even more in detail. This has been a basic introduction using some well-known web examples. So… there will be more. Stay tuned!

Christopher Grant is leading the User Experience strategy at Sclipo, a Web 2.0 social utility for online video learning based in Barcelona, Spain. He is available for speakings engagements on social media & web 2.0, in particular, Digital Altruism. Please contact UxStation for more information and an abstract.

Chris is a designer, user experience specialist and web project leader. Since 1996, he has worked with startups and multi-nationals based in the US and across Europe. Grant is deeply interested in user psychology and motivation, specifically relating to participation in virtual communities. His current work developing “digital altruism” is based on his experience recruiting an online community of 2,000 expert users for Emagister.com.
Now as part of the Sclipo team, he is using his experience to help build a new version of this award-winning social learning network for teaching through video and webcam.

For more Web 2.0 musings from Chris, visit his blogon all things Web 2.0.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been asked questions about the field of user experience design by both friends and a few strangers. Instead of writing my responses out over n’ over, I figured a blog post might come in handy. Below is my own personal take on the basics of UX in FAQ form:

1. What is “user experience” (aka “UX”)?

In a broad sense, this field examines both improving existing products and the creation of new ones that solve some sort of human problem or fulfill a desire. More often than not, this mainly involves the design of web sites, web applications, and client software (programs that run on a computing device vs the web).

This narrow definition reflects the field as its practiced in techy areas like Seattle and Silicon Valley, but on a greater scale, “UX” means a whole lot more.

If you really boil it down, anyone who prepares anything for someone else to consume is a UX designer… so by this definition, we are all UX designers. Telling someone a story: that’s UX… DJs stringing together songs in a pleasurable way: that’s UX… the sushi chef who prepares an omakase style diner: definitely UX…. filmmaking = UX. No matter what the particular example, these all share the common thread of understanding an audience and satisfying some kind of desire (to be informed, entertained, etc).

2. Where do “user experience designers” work?

Going by the definition above, someone with this printed on their business card can follow any of the following routes:

A. working for a big corporation like Apple, Google, IBM, Oracle, Amazon, etc
B. working for a startup or small company like Twitter
C. working as a freelancer that goes from project to project with various clients (like my friend Sally)
D. working for a design firm that also has multiple clients (Adaptive Path & ZAAZ are popular ones)

A person in this role will spend their time thinking about how to make a given experience easier to understand and generally more appealing, hopefully even pleasurable!

3. How do I know if UX is something I’d want to do for a living? (aka, “you might be a UX designer if…”)

A good litmus test is to look at how you live your daily life. Are you constantly looking for ways to improve the environment around you? Are you the type that gets enjoyment from optimizing your closet? Do you look for ways to make your daily routines more efficient? When you run into the inevitable bad user experience, do you only complain about it or do solutions to improve the frustration come to you naturally? The answer to these questions should give you a sense for whether UX is something you’d enjoy and be good at.

4. How does UX differ from graphic design?

One of the most common misconceptions about the field is that it’s the same thing as graphic design. I understand the confusion as the two are very related. To put it as plainly as possible… one could have really crappy graphic desgn skills yet still be a great UX designer. Having art skills is certainly helpful, but it’s not a requirement. Some of the best UX work is illustrated by stick figure diagrams and white board drawings covered in post-it notes. In fact, focusing too much on the visual details can often hinder a UX designer depending on the needs of the project (more on this later in the post). While graphic design is certainly a part of good UX, it’s a subset which resides along side things like information architecture and usability.

The rest of Ario’s blog post and more thoughts on Ux (or Dave Chappelle!) can be found here - you can also comment if you would like!