The Usability of Social Networks

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The Usability of Social Networks

• Kristofer Layon
• System Academic Administration
• Kurtis Scaletta
• Office of Information Technology
• World Usability Day
• November 13, 2008

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The Usability of Social Networks

• This is both presentationworkshop!
• Overview of Twitter for live demo 
• Quick preview of program
• Defining social networking
• Defining usability
• Going deeper into specific social platforms
• Comparing / contrasting based on our ongoing
  evaluation of these tools
• What do you think? We'll devote 1/2 of our time
  to your comments and questions.
• We're just getting things started! )

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The Usability of Social Networks

• What is social networking?
• Posting personal profiles
• Maintaining lists of friends
• Posting blogs or microblogs
• Sharing links, photos, songs, videos etc.
• Joining networks, groups, or communities.
• Having fun in a myriad of ways...
• play games
• make quizzes
• superpoke
• etc.

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The Usability of Social Networks

• What  is Usability?
• user-centeredness looking at every decision from
  the user's perspective
• having empathy for users not just thinking like
  them, but also trying to understand how they feel
• focus less on functionality, focus more on ease
  of use
• usability is being clear about what you want to
  doand also being clear about what you do not
  want to do
• BAD confusing, complicated, misleading, ugly
• GOOD easy, simple, clear, beautiful

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The Usability of Social Networks

• Scenarios for colleges  universities using 
• MySpace (http//myspace.com/)
• Recruitment and virtual visits
• Facebook (http//facebook.com)
• Student groups, alumni networks
• LiveJournal (http//livejournal.com)
• Bulletin Board, College diary
• GoodReads (http//goodreads.com)
• Reading groups

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The Usability of Social Networks

• Focus on Twitter why I like it so much (or, why
  I find it so usable)
• It is 'lightweight' it only does one thing
• No advertising
• Multimodal web, Adobe AIR, email, SMS
• Its basic question, "What are you doing?", is
  inherently empathetic and human (non-tech)
• It builds and enhances community
• It has become my first source of valued news and
  information.

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The Usability of Social Networks

• Assessing the impact of Twitter social
  networking
• tech community
• broader community
• other...
• a sample University of MN application

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The Usability of Social Networks

• Usability Challenges
• Customizable vs. Consistent (or "Corporate")
  Appearance
• Open to 3rd Party Developers vs. Features Creep
• Social Network Mgmt - lack of interoperability
  between systems, mgmt of persona on a site with
  many purposes, etc.

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The Usability of Social Networks

• Looking forward in Social Networking
• Custom and on-the-fly networks in Ning
• Application bridges between platforms (i.e.,
  Twitter through facebook, pull a blog into
  facebook...)
• Open Social

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The Usability of Social Networks

• QA, Discussion
• What potential do you see for these tools?
• Share critiques or success stories about
  usability of popular social networking platforms