Anonymity online (or the lack thereof)

There is a short, quirky, well-worth-reading article in the the New York Times Magazine called Not Being There, and it's about anonymity online, or rather the fact that you're not as anonymous as you think...

It first explains the promise of anonymity that the Internet afforded us at first:

The chance to try on fresh identities was the great boon that life online was supposed to afford us. Multiuser role-playing games and discussion groups would be venues for living out fantasies. Shielded by anonymity, everyone could now pass a “second life” online as Thor the Motorcycle Sex God or the Sage of Wherever. Some warned, though, that there were other possibilities. The Stanford Internet expert Lawrence Lessig likened online anonymity to the ring of invisibility that surrounds the shepherd Gyges in one of Plato’s dialogues. Under such circumstances, Plato feared, no one is “of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice.”

It goes on to point out this truth about the perceived benefits of anonymity:

Anonymity, it turns out, can serve two opposite interests: fantasy (an escape from the self) and manipulation (a reinforcement of the self).

In other words, you can either (1) pretend to be someone else that you really want to be, or you can (2) pretend to be someone else who really likes the "real" you, and go on to tell everyone how great you are.  The article then explains how anonymity doesn't really exist online - if you have an IP address, you can be identified!  But it also explains the dangers of thinking you're anonymous online...

Without a physically present audience that we can see or hear, we are left free to imagine our audience however we wish. When we do so, it’s easy to delude ourselves that what we’re talking about determines whom we’re talking to. People don’t think, “There could be a billion people reading this, so I’d better not discuss sex.” Their instincts tell them: “This is a place for talking about sex, so there can’t be many people listening.”

It closes with another explanation of why people seek out anonymity, and why people will probably continue to shoot themselves in the mouth...

Shakespeare’s Henry V, in perhaps the founding act of sock-puppetry, disguised himself in the cloak of a common soldier on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt to rally the restive English forces with a pep talk (“I myself heard the King say he would not be ransom’d”) that few would have believed had it been given in the King’s own name. Leadership is intellectually delegitimizing, and yet leaders require intellectual legitimacy. This is an old conundrum. It has often been beyond the powers of a single identity to solve.

What does this have to do with user experience?  I think sites that play up this false notion of anonymity as a benefit are doing their users a disservice.  It brings up a bigger question for me: Is the next evolution of user experience design not just to fulfil user needs, but also exposing what users don't need and why, even if they want it?

The Amazon MP3 search experience

My colleague Michael Morgan did an interesting evaluation of the search experience on AmazonMP3 Beta, and I wanted to share his thoughts here because I think it's a very good overview of what works and what doesn't...

Overview

Some of the high points include DRM (Digital Right Management) Free music that can play on iTunes and Windows Media Player, a nice collage of fun facts (Top MP3 songs, Top Artists, and Artists Spotlights), and very inexpensive full albums and single tracks (.89 to .99, compared to iTunes costs of .99 to 1.29). As a comparison, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, a 26 track album costs $16.99 on iTunes but only $7.99 on AmazonMP3.

First Impressions of the Finding Experience

I really liked the Top MP3 and Top Artist Spotlights as I found this engaging and a place where I would come back to check who is in the Top 25 week to week. However, the music search experience is mediocre. The default sort is by relevance but I found the list of music arduous to comb through. After applying the ‘Best Selling’ sort, I had an easier time traversing the list as the songs that I knew (i.e., the popular ones) were at the top. The "sort by" setting does not stick from session to session so that is a bit annoying.

Albums are presented like all other merchandising is on Amazon, off to the side and on the left. After initial discoverability issues, I did find the albums as this was what I was originally looking for. There are not many reviews as the site is new but the music is very old so they could have easily used the CD reviews. I was initially unimpressed with Amazon’s search experience.

Final Thoughts

The Finding experience needs some work but I think the value and abundance of cheap DRM-free music is enough for me to come back and at least try it out. I don’t think there are any breakthrough experiences with respect to Finding, but there are other aspects that make this service compelling. Although I was not compelled to buy any music right away, I do think the new service as a few things going for it:

• Value. Songs are very inexpensive compared to iTunes DRM-Free tracks that sell for $1.29
• Abundance. Unlike the iTunes Store’s DRM-free tracks that only come from EMI, AmazonMP3 has secured 2 million DRM-free songs by more than 180,000 artists from over 20,000 major and independent labels
• Engagement. Publishing top 25 lists on songs and artists is very interesting.
• DRM. All songs are DRM-free, encoded at 256 kilobits per second, in comparison to iTunes' low bit rate, DRM saturated site.

Design as differentiator - what we can learn from Apple

There is a great article in Technology Review about how Apple uses design as a product differentiator.  You can read it here, but the web site requires registration - if you don't want to do that you can download a PDF version here.

Reading the article got me thinking about design as differentiator, and how we can learn from Apple and apply their success to other products.  The following principles stood out for me - the points are followed by direct quotes from the article:

1. Design focus has to come from the top.  It was largely [Steve Jobs] who established the company's emphasis on industrial design. Indeed, some would say that he made design a higher priority than technology.  Even in the early 1980s, [Mark] Rolston says, "Jobs wanted to elevate Apple by using design." Jobs, he says, not only cared personally about design but saw that it could be a way to differentiate his company's products from the PCs of the day, which often looked little evolved from hobbyist boxes. Ken Campbell, a codesigner of the Apple Lisa, was quoted in Kunkel's AppleDesign as saying that Jobs wanted Apple to be what Olivetti was in the 1970s: "an undisputed leader in industrial design."
2. Don't be limited by standard engineering requirements - push for innovation.  But Apple, Rolston says, "will change a whole factory's process." What's more, he adds, the company keeps its eyes open for new manufacturing possibilities, no matter how obscure. One example is the "double-shot" method of combining layers of different or different-colored materials. Apple "saw that a manufacturer had a special process for this on a small scale," Rolston says, and incorporated layered materials into its designs--for example, the clear plastic layered over colored materials in iPods and older iMacs. "[Apple] pushed them to do it on a much larger scale. Apple helped the manufacturers master the process and product."
3. Design innovation doesn't just happen automatically - it requires significant resources.  [Robert] Brunner estimates that today Apple spends 15 to 20 percent of its industrial-design time on concept--far more than most other computer companies--and the rest on implementation. He says that Apple rides herd on manufacturers, sending design-team members to factories for weeks at a time to see what can be done and to push manufacturers to find new solutions. If the designers see a true innovation, they can integrate it into their designs and check the quality of execution at the point of manufacture.
4. User experience needs a seat at the table from the very beginning of product development.  [Donald Norman explains:] "There were three evaluations required at the inception of a product idea: a marketing requirement ­document, an engineering requirement document, and a user-­experience document," Norman recalls. [Mark] Rolston elabo­rates: "Marketing is what people want; engineering is what we can do; user experience is 'Here's how people like to do things.'"  "These three [documents] would be reviewed by a committee of executives, and if approved, the design group would get a budget, and a team leader would be assigned," Norman says. At that point, he continues, "the team would work on expanding the three requirement documents, inserting plans on how they hoped to meet the marketing, engineering, and user-experience needs--figures for the release date, ad cycle, pricing details, and the like." And the team's progress would be continually reviewed as the project went forward.
5. Don't lose sight of the end product.  "Critical to Apple's success in design is the way Jobs brought focus and discipline to the product teams," ­Norman says. "[Jobs] had a single, cohesive image of the final product and would not allow any deviation, no matter how promising a new proposed feature appeared to be, no matter how much the team complained. Other companies are more democratic, listening to everyone's opinions, and the result is bloat and a lack of cohesion.

These principles placed design at the center of the product development process at Apple, and it is why their products are differentiated by being both beautiful and simple to use:

One direct result of that sharpened focus is Apple's unique ability to create simple products. Though the idea of a simple high-tech device seems counterintuitive (why not offer more functionality if you can?), it's worked for Apple.  "The hardest part of design, especially consumer electronics," says Norman, "is keeping features out." Simplicity, he says, is in itself a product differentiator, and pursuing it can lead to innovation.   Rolston agrees. "The most fundamental thing about Apple that's interesting to me," he says, "is that they're just as smart about what they don't do. Great products can be made more beautiful by omitting things."

And finally, on why design is such a powerful differentiator, I have to agree with one of Donald Norman's final quotes in the article, where he says that "Attractive things work better.  When you wash and wax a car, it drives better, doesn't it? Or at least feels like it does."  

Broken Experience #3

I am in Las Vegas for a conference this week. The hotel is really nice, but I encountered this bizarre keypad to work the curtains in the room.

There is no natural mapping between the buttons and their functions. I went through quite a bit of trial & error before figuring it out. And the problem is that even once you figure it out, it's not very logical. At its core, this design violates the Recognition rather than recall usability heuristic:

Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

Update on 9/25: It seems that this little innocent photo is creating some polarizing opinions ranging from "You're an idiot for not seeing how simple this is", to "I agree - you guys need to read 'The Design of Everyday things!', to the more fundamental question of why you would even need electricity to open curtains... Check out the discussion here.

Structural Holes and online social networks

A few weeks ago I wrote about the theory of Social Capital, and how that can be applied to online social networks. Today I want to talk about a related theory called Structural Hole Theory, and explain what implications this theory can have for online social networks like Facebook and MySpace. First, a little background...

Structural Holes Defined

Ronald Burt’s theory of ‘structural holes’ is an important extension of social network theory. This theory aims to explain “how competition works when players have established relations with others” (Burt, 1992), and argues that networks provide two types of benefits: information benefits and control benefits.

• Information benefits refer to who knows about relevant information and how fast they find out about it. Actors with strong networks will generally know more about relevant subjects, and they will also know about it faster. According to Burt (1992), “players with a network optimally structured to provide these benefits enjoy higher rates of return to their investments, because such players know about, and have a hand in, more rewarding opportunities”.
• Control benefits refer to the advantages of being an important player in a well-connected network. In a large network, central players have more bargaining power than other players, which also means that they can, to a large extent, control many of the information flows within the network.

Burt’s theory of structural holes aims to enhance these benefits to their full potential. A structural hole is “a separation between non-redundant contacts” (Burt, 1992). The holes between non-redundant contacts provide opportunities that can enhance both the control benefits and the information benefits of networks. The figure below shows a graphical representation of this definition.

Optimizing the benefits of networks

I will now look at how structural holes can facilitate the optimization of information benefits and control benefits. There are several ways to optimize structural holes in a network to ensure maximum information benefits:

• The size of the network. The size of a network determines the amount of information that is shared within the network. A person has a much better chance to receive timely, relevant information in a big network than in a small one. The size of the network is, however, not dependant merely on the number of actors in the network, but the number of non-redundant actors. The utility of a network with reference to its size can be described by a function know as Metcalfe’s Law. Robert Metcalfe observed that new technologies are valuable only if many people use them. Specifically, the usefulness, or utility of the network equals the square of the number of users. The more people use a piece of software, a network, a particular standard, a game, or a book, the more valuable it becomes and the more new users it will attract, increasing both the utility and the speed of its adoption by still more users.
• Efficient networks. Efficiency in a network is concerned with maximizing the number of non-redundant contacts in a network in order to maximize the number of structural holes per actor in the network. It is possible to eliminate redundant contacts by linking only with a primary actor in each redundant cluster. This saves time and effort that would normally have been spent on maintaining redundant contacts.
• Effective networks. Effectiveness in a network is concerned with “distinguishing primary from secondary contacts in order to focus resources on preserving primary contacts” (Burt, 1992:21). Building an effective network means building relationships with actors that lead to the maximum number of other secondary actors, while still being non-redundant.
• Weak ties. In his 1973 paper entitled “The strength of weak ties”, Mark Granovetter (Granovetter, 1973) developed his theory of weak ties. The theory states that because a person with strong ties in a cluster more or less knows what the other people in the cluster know (e.g. in close friendships or a board of directors), the effective spread of information relies on the weak ties between people in separate clusters. “Weak ties are essential to the flow of information that integrates otherwise disconnected social clusters into a broader society” (Burt, 1992). Structural holes describe the same phenomena as weak ties because both emphasize the need for entrepreneurs to fill the gap between different clusters and non-redundant contacts. However, structural hole theory goes one step further and stresses that what makes the gap important is not the weakness of the tie but the structural hole over which it spans. Building and maintaining weak ties over large structural holes enhances information benefits and creates even more efficient and effective networks.

To achieve networks rich in information benefits it is necessary to build large networks with non-redundant contacts and many weak ties over structural holes. Some of these information benefits are:

• More contacts are included in the network, which implies that you have access to a larger volume of information.
• Non-redundant contacts ensure that this vast amount of information is diverse and independent.
• Linking with the primary actor in a cluster implies a connection with the central player in that cluster. This ensures that you will be one of the first people to be informed when new information becomes available.

Now, once structural holes are identified and the network is optimized to provide maximum information benefits, an important question is how these benefits can be used to capitalize on the opportunities in the network. Control benefits answer this question. Structural holes not only provide information benefits, they also give actors a certain amount of control in negotiating their relationships with other actors. To understand the role of structural holes in this regard, it is necessary to understand the concept of tertius gaudens. Taken from the work of George Simmel, the tertius gaudens is defined as “the third who benefits” (Simmel, 1923). It describes the person who benefits from the disunion of two others.

For example, when two people want to buy the same product, the seller can play their bids against one another to get a higher price for the particular product. Structural holes are the setting in which the tertius gaudens operates. An entrepreneur stepping into a structural hole at the right time will have the power and the control to negotiate the relationship between the two actors divided by the hole, most often by playing their demands against one another.

Where structural holes provide a platform for tertius strategies, information is the substance with which the strategy is performed (Burt, 1992). Accurate, timely and relevant information delivered between two non-redundant contacts at the right time creates an immense opportunity to negotiate and control the relationship between these actors. That is the power of structural holes, and that is why the theory is so relevant for social networks on the Internet.

Implications

The different benefits of structural hole theory makes it instrumental in the creation and development of social capital in networks. The information and control benefits described by this theory can identify and expand the intrinsic value of networks. If we want to find the value of online social networks these three constructs — social network theory, social capital theory and structural hole theory — are essential tools.

For example, if we apply these concepts to MySpace or Facebook, we quickly realize it is not the sheer number of "friends" in your network that count, it is the diversity of the people in your network that is most important. If you only have links to people in your immediate group of friends or colleagues, it will be difficult to get new information, since everyone will pretty much know the same things. This is not to say that you have to start adding random people to your network who you don't know, but it does mean that people with who you have "weak ties" will often provide you with new information and therefore more benefits than your "strong ties".

These theory also explains why eBay is such a huge success. By stepping into the structural holes between millions of buyers and sellers, the perfect tertius gaudens strategy was created, and it is arguably the best example of the entrepreneurial use of structural holes in the history of the Internet. If you think about it, every Facebook App is a tertius strategy -- some are good, some are not. But it shows that there are still a lot of structural holes out there in social networks, waiting for someone to step in and broker the deal...

References

Burt, Ronald S. (1992). Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Granovetter, M. S. (1973). “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78: 1360-1380.
Simmel, G. (1923). The Sociology of Georg Simmel. New York, Free Press.

Conference Presentation: Customer Researchers as Health Professionals

A colleague and I will be in Las Vegas next week for the yearly AMA Marketing Research Conference. We will be presenting a session on user experience research entitled Customer Researchers as Health Professionals - How eBay Uses Research to Improve Product Health (view a slightly shortened version online here, or below).

I'll try to summarize briefly what we will be talking about. We start with a little context about how research works at eBay and where it sits in the organization, and then we go over the research strategy I head up at eBay, called Product Health. We use a variety of quantitative and qualitative user experience research methods to track the health of different eBay site areas (or key flows) over time. Below is a schematic of the different research components of Product Health, which, as you can see, aims to cover a broad and holistic view of the Product:

It is our point of view that there is no single research methodology that can tell a complete story. If you want to have a holistic view of your product and how users feel about it and interact with it, it is essential to combine a variety of methodologies together, and keep doing the research over time so that you are able to (1) accurately assess how you're doing, and also (2) identify the areas that need to be improved. The quantitative components help us understand what is happening, and the qualitative components help us understand why we're seeing what we're seeing, and how to fix it.

We also spend some time talking about a synthesis project we did, where we pulled together the results from all the different Product Health research components, and used the insights to come up with 5 guiding principles for product development, which we believe translates pretty well to any e-commerce organization:

• Build Trust. Be responsive to customer needs for security and service. Ensure the quality and accuracy of the information available on the site. Build responsibility and accountability in the online community.
• Simplify. Streamline and clarify processes, navigation, site performance issues and fees that can make the customer’s experience unnecessarily complex and impact commerce.
• Be Relevant. Design an experience around how people naturally explore, evaluate and purchase items. Provide relevant, quality information that supports this experience.
• Provide value. Align buyers and sellers with a common means of determining item value fees. Treat sellers as “paying customers” who deserve value-added service for the fees they pay.
• Connect people through commerce. Leverage areas on the site to connect people with common interests through commerce.

We feel that this is a great example of how user-generated insights gathered in a methodologically robust way can drive product strategy and resource allocation effectively within an online organization. So, anyway, if you happen to be in Vegas next week, come check it out!

The trouble with computers (and Microsoft)

There is a very interesting article in The Economist about the many things that are wrong with computers today.  It's called The trouble with computers, and it starts by making some remarks about user interfaces and complex design:

Consider the Nokia 6680 mobile phone, says Adam Greenfield, an expert in computing culture at New York University [...]. He found that 13 clicks were needed to change its ringtone. “It's an interface designed by engineers for engineers,” he says. Steven Kyffin, a senior researcher at Philips, a consumer-electronics giant based in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, concedes that computer programmers and engineers, himself included, are often guilty of designing complicated systems packed with too many features. “We're compelled by complexity,” Mr Kyffin says. “There's a point where humanity just can't handle it.”

And this statement then gets right to the heart of the problem:

Part of the problem is that programmers have traditionally had more power than designers. Programmers put in place the myriad features they want; interface designers then struggle to wrap them all up in a product that is simple to use. The results, all too often, are clunky interfaces.

Now, what bugs me is how Microsoft is claiming to be on the forefront of a movement to give designers more power:

Ken Wood, deputy director of Microsoft's research laboratory in Cambridge, England, says his company is putting greater emphasis on interface design. Three years ago, he says, none of his lab's budget was earmarked for pure HCI [Human-Computer Interaction] research. Today, a quarter of the lab's budget goes on it.

They may spend money on it, but the company's products are clearly show that in most cases decision-making still doesn't sit with designers.  There are so many examples -- like the superficial bells-and-whistles changes in the new version of Excel, without any real improvements to areas that desperately need it like the graphing engine.  What I find even more troubling is how the Vista operating system is being showcased as a product that exemplifies good design:

Andrew Herbert, managing director of Microsoft's Cambridge laboratory, told attendees [of HCI 2020] that interface simplification is vital if the computing world is to be opened up to new consumers such as the elderly, children and people with little computer experience. Microsoft says new features in its Windows Vista operating system, such as 3-D graphics intended to make navigation easier, demonstrate its commitment to greater ease of use.

Um... has anyone used Vista lately?  I would love to see the research that shows that 3-D graphics make navigation easier.  The truth is that it simply doesn't -- especially not in the clunky way Vista implements it.  How would adding a 3rd dimension onto a 2-dimensional screen create an easier interface?  If you can't get the design right in 2 dimensions, a 3rd one isn't going to fix the problem.  It might look cool, but it doesn't help you much.  At least The Economist picked up on that:

But tweaking an existing window-based interface is hardly a radical step.

Discussing the future of computing, the article concludes:

Many futurists and computer experts believe that the logical conclusion of all of these new input devices, sensors and smarter software to anticipate users' needs, will be for computing to blend into the background. In this “ubiquitous computing” model, computers will no longer be things people use explicitly, any more than they “use” electricity when turning on a light or a radio. Mr Greenfield says a digital “dream world” that provides “one seamless experience of being immersed in information” hinges on one big if: computers and their interfaces must become so good that, like electricity, they rarely require concentrated attention. The trouble with computers in their current form is that they are still all too conspicuous.

I'm not sure I agree with this notion that computers should "blend into the background" so that we don't notice them.  It not only sounds creepy (ok, maybe I've see The Matrix too many times), but more importantly, I don't think this will help users accomplish their goals.  It goes against almost all of Nielsen's Usability Heuristics, especially the following three:

• Visibility of system status.  The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
• Recognition rather than recall.  Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
• User control and freedom. Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.

If you can't see the computer, how will you know when you made a mistake, and how will you recover from it?  We simply can't rely on computers to figure out by itself what our needs are and how the system should meet those needs.  I believe that these technological advances into 3-D spaces, ubiquitous computing and novel input devices are going to exacerbate the enormous amount of usability issues that currently exists in software and web applications.  Again, if we can't even get it right in 2 dimensions, adding another one that looks "cool" isn't going to help.  We are, indeed, "compelled by complexity."  But maybe I'm wrong.  I hope so...

Broken Experience #2

Here is another gem of an error message from Microsoft.  Got this one on Microsoft Sharepoint while trying to publish a (perfectly functioning) RSS feed of a blog.  It worked fine until I got this:

First, why do these messages always reference "unexpected errors"?  Is there another kind of error?  Also, there are no links to these mysterious "logs" (Plural??), no explanation of what went wrong...  How difficult can it be to pull in the data from the error log and tell you right there what the problem is? 

I especially like the helpful hint to "correct the problem" once you find out what it is.  Because I wouldn't have thought of doing that at all...

Amazon.com's redesigned home page

Amazon.com just redesigned their home page (click thumbnail on the left for a bigger picture).  Nothing major, but still a nice improvement.  At first glance there seems to be more visual consistency, and they're also now able to get more merchandising inserted above the fold.

The interesting part for me, however, is how they explain this change to users.  The top right corner has a link that says "We've been remodeling. Come take a look."  That immediately struck me because it's such a non-traditional, Web 2.0 way of writing copy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The page you see when you click the "come take a look" link is shown below (again, click the thumbnail for a bigger version).  I really like the content on this page, and how Amazon speaks to their customers here.  My favorite part is how they framed what must have been countless hours of usability testing:

How did you decide on this design?

We consulted the foremost experts in the field: our customers. We traveled around the world, inviting customers like you to come and try out the new features and design. We listened to their feedback and made changes based on their opinions. Then we asked more customers for their advice, and we made more changes from their feedback. The design you see today reflects the input of many real-life customers of our U.S. and international websites

And about the slight color change of their main navigation bar:

Hmm. Something else looks different too. What is it?

Good eye! The color of the top navigation bar has changed--it's now a different (and slightly more fetching) shade of blue.

And then there are some quirky ways they address people who might not be happy with the change, like "But I liked Amazon the way it was! I really dug [insert your favorite feature here]."

I think this is a really great way of introducing design changes.  Talk to users like real people.  Be witty, open and honest.  Acknowledge that everyone might not like the changes, but explain in simple language your reasons for doing it.  Good job, Amazon...

Did the iPod's design evolution influence Apple's stock price?

The Wall Street Journal just published an interesting graph overlaying different iPod releases with Apple's stock price: 

Core77 Design Blog points to this as proof that good design can influence stock price.  This is what they say:

The clarity of their cohesive design language and its evolution over time is also instantly appreciated at a glance. If ever business needed confirmation that design can have a significant effect on your ROI, then this piece of infoporn is it.

At first glance I'd love to agree right off the bat, because I am a strong believer in the ROI of good design.  However, the researcher in me has to take a step back and ask if we can really say this based off this one chart.  As every researcher will tell you, correlation does not imply causality.  Just because 2 things happen at the same time, it does not mean that one event causes the other. 

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but there are hundreds of factors that influence the stock price, and we simply can't prove causality just by looking at this graph.  For example, how do we use design to explain the sudden drop in stock price between the iPod video launch and the redesign iPod shuffle launch?

Having said that, I do think that this poses an interesting question about what effect good user experience has on business metrics and revenue.  I guess if we can find a way to prove that beyond the shadow of a doubt, we won't have to spend half our time convincing people that good user experience is important...

Social capital in online social networks

As part of my postgraduate research I did a lot of work on Social Network Theory and Social Capital -- two academic theories from the social sciences field. This was before the rise of online social networking sites. I recently revisited some of the work I did, and I became interested in mapping the concept of Social Capital to online social networks as they exist today. In order to to that, here is first a definition and explanation (pulled from my dissertation):

Closely related to social network theory is the theory of ‘social capital’ which deals with the intrinsic value of network structures. In general terms, social capital "consists of resources embedded in social relations and social structure, which can be mobilized when an actor wished to increase the likelihood of success in a purposive action" (Lin, 2001b). Lin (2001a) points out two important components concerning this definition:

• First, resources are embedded in social relations rather than in the individual. The properties of the network and an actor’s position in that network are more important than the actor himself.
• Second, access and use of these resources are dependant on an actor being aware of their presence. If an actor is not aware of ties or relationships between him and other actors, he cannot use the resources available to him. Social capital then seems not to exist, and will only come into existence for that actor once he becomes aware of it. The ability to identify networks and key role-players in these networks will therefore make it possible to identify social capital where the relevant actors may be completely unaware of them. The goal of finding the key actors in a network can therefore be likened to gauging the social capital of a network and finding value in networks where it was not previously observed.

From the definition it is inferred that social capital depends first on an actor’s position in the network (are they in the right place to access the resources?), and second it depends on the nature of the resources in the network (are the resources worth accessing?).

It is very interesting to think about online social networking sites in this context. The social capital (the value of being in the network) depends not just on the individual people in that network, but very heavily on the way they are connected. Connecting to the "right" people end up defining you and building your social capital, because other people will "judge" the amount of capital you have based on your connections and your interactions with these connections. In this context it is essential to find those "key actors" in the network that are going to increase your social capital the most -- the popular guy, your VP at work, etc.

Now, according to Adler and Kwon (2000), there are 3 benefits of social capital:

• Social capital provides actors in the network with access to broader sources of information at lower costs.
• Social capital provides actors in the network with extended power and influence.
• Social capital facilitates solidarity between actors, as strong networks encourage compliance with rules and customs without the need for formal controls.

Again, it's interesting to overlay these concepts on social networks online. Let's look at each in turn:

• Access to broader sources of information at lower costs. "Lower costs" in this context would mean less effort -- you are able to get access to the information you want about your friends without having to reach out to them in a traditional sense with a phone call or hanging out. On Facebook, for example, the news comes to you through the "Mini-Feed" application. You know what the people in your network watch, eat, do, listen to, etc. And this social information is of course an extremely powerful marketing tool. Social networks enable this information to spread much more easily (i.e. at "lower cost").
• Extended power and influence. People with higher social capital not only get the benefit of more (although not necessarily better) information, but they also stand the chance to become "opinion leaders" that a lot of people rely on. And this is not necessarily the person with the most connections (I will talk about this in an upcoming post where I will discuss Ronald Burt's theory of Structural Holes). This power and influence can really go a long way to build an online identity that becomes a sense of pride -- consider the lonelygirl15 phenomenon, or influential blogs like TMZ and The Drudge Report.
• Solidarity between actors (compliance with rules and customs without the need for formal controls). This is an interesting one to think about. Even though there is so much freedom to do and say what you want online, strong social networks seem to have their own rules in terms of what is allowable and what is not. I think here for example of the "Groups" feature in Facebook, where people who don't necessarily know each other connect over shared interests. "Misbehaving" on Facebook or MySpace, in whatever way that is defined for a particular network, will get you kicked out of the circle -- friends will drop you, groups will take you off their member lists, etc. This all serves to build the strength of the network and its members even more.

"So what?", you ask? Well, I think that we don't pay enough attention to theory. I just read this paragraph from my dissertation again:

Theory and practice cannot be separated. Virtually every practical decision a person makes and every practical opinion a person holds has some theory behind it. Theory makes the facts of social life comprehensible and places seemingly meaningless events in a general framework that enables us to determine cause and effect, to explain, and to interpret. Even half a century ago Revzan (1951) commented that "analysis leading to theory should not merely condone practice, but should seek rather to improve and direct such practice." Much earlier, Einstein (1938) observed that "science is not just a collection of laws, a catalogue of unrelated facts. It is a creation of the human mind, with its freely invented ideas and concepts. Physical theories try to form a picture of reality and to establish a connection with the wide world of sense impressions. Thus the only justification for our mental structures is whether and in what way our theories form such a link."

The theories of social networking and social capital can enhance our understanding of what happens in online social networks, which can, in turn, become strong business ideas. Some questions these theories raise for me are, for example, How can we point out who the opinion leaders are in your online social network, something that is not always apparent? How can we use the rules and customs that online networks adhere to in creating a more meaningful experience for users?

I think there is a lot of value in looking beyond networks to the social capital that they produce. We need to understand how online social networks already manifest these concepts, and where there is still opportunities to use these theories to create better experiences for users.

PS I have now written the follow-up that I promised earlier in the article - you can view it here: http://www.ux-sa.com/2007/09/structural-holes-and-online-social.html

References:

Adler, P. S. & S. W. Kwon (2000). "Social Capital: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". Knowledge and Social Capital - Foundations and Applications. E. L. Lesser. Boston, Butterworth Heinemann.

Einstein, Albert & L. Infeld (1938). The Evolution of Physics. Simon and Schuster: New York.

Lin, N. (2001a). "Building a Network Theory of Social Capital". Social Capital - Theory and Research. N. Lin, K. Cook and R. S. Burt. New York, Aldine de Gruyter.

Lin, N. (2001b). Social Capital - A Theory of Social Structure and Action. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Revzan, D.A. (1951). “Review of ‘Theory in Marketing’ by Cox, R. and Wroe Alderson.” Journal of Marketing 15(3):101-108.

A great user experience on Wine.com

A craving for a South African Pinotage led me to Wine.com last week, and I was extremely impressed with the site and the overall experience. Here's why I liked it so much. I think these principles should be top of mind during product design and development:

1. An online search experience designed around the natural offline experience. Even though there is a search box to look for a specific wine, it is not very prominent. Instead the "Shop For Wine" page is designed to help you find the wine you need based on price, location, varietal, etc. I was able to find South African Pinotages <$20 in less than a minute. You are able to add and remove filters in any order you'd like. I like this experience because they thought about the type of users that are going to come to the site, and what their needs are going to be. Buying wine is a browse & taste experience offline -- and they recreated that experience online through a really good browse experience.
   
2. Progressive product information disclosure. Once I got to $20 and Below > South Africa > Red Wine > Pinotage, a description appeared underneath the breadcrumb: Pinotage, a crossing made by the South Africans, is a hardy, rustic grape, with gamey and smoky mixing with wild berry flavors. Underneath this one-sentence overview was a "read more" link which exposes a dynamic layer pop-up on the page itself so that you can read more about the varietal without having to leave the page (more on that later). The search results gives you the information you need, and clicking into a specific wine leads to a world of additional information. But they don't dump it on you all at once -- progressive content disclosure is a difficult concept to get right, but they do it perfectly here.
   
3. Dynamic page elements allows maximum interaction without having to leave the page. I mentioned the "read more" link about the varietal in my second point, but I also noticed a great interaction element that I haven't seen on any other sites before. Clicking on "Add to cart" doesn't take you to your shopping cart -- it has a dynamic element that provides feedback about your action, but allows you to continue to shop without ever leaving the page. Below is a short video of it -- notice how the number of items in your cart updates automatically as well.
   
   
   
   
4. The experience doesn't end once you place an order. Let me just say that this is a company that understands wine-drinkers, and aims to provide a total experience with their products.
   • Once you place your order, you have the option to download and print "Cellar Notes", detailed descriptions of the wine you just bought, with an area to write down your own notes.
   • The wine arrives with a welcome letter that also gives you 1c shipping on your next order.
   • The box includes labels for your wines that you can hang on the bottles to make them easy to identify

This is only the second time it's ever happened to me that I become a loyal customer after my first interaction with a company (the other was Vonage, if anyone is wondering...). This experience was designed to be consistent online and offline. It was designed to never let technology get in the way of your goal -- to buy the perfect bottle of wine. And let me end with this picture of the brilliant Simonsig 2003 Pinotage that was the perfect ending to this story...