Ebook: Designing Social Interfaces: Principles, Patterns, and Practices for Improving the User Experience (Animal Guide)

First, a disclaimer. I am a contributor to this book, as well as a friend to the authors.

Believe me, however, when I say that Designing Social Interfaces is a critical reference to keep in your toolkit if you design, product manage or even just participate in social communities online. True, these are design patterns like you may be familiar with from Jennifer Tidwell's (also excellent) Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design but DSI factors in a critical (and complex) fact: software designed to be shared amongst many, presents vastly different challenges than that designed to be used alone.

In a one-to-one interaction (person to machine), the challenges are, at this point in the computing revolution, somewhat known: challenges of clarity (what can I do here?); usability (how do I proceed? how do I recover from a misstep?); security (is my data safe?)

Social interfaces add whole new dimensions to the task of creating elegant interfaces. Most importantly, the messy dimension of OTHER PEOPLE. Now, the discerning interface designer must consider issues like: individual motivations, egos, cliques and vendettas. This brave new world draws upon disciplines as diverse as sociology, psychology and behavioral economics (oh, and, btw - you STILL will have to work a layer in Photoshop from time to time.) I have been designing community software professionally for more than 10 years, and the challenges it presents are still daunting to me.

Designing Social Interfaces rises admirably to the task of giving people like me a helping hand.

First of all, it is a gorgeous book: if you think you're familiar with the O'Reilly 'house' editorial designs (functional, attractive, but.. just a little bit staid), then you should take a look inside DSI and prepare to be pleasantly surprised. There are abundant, full-color examples drawn from HUNDREDS of completely contemporary interface examples. (I shudder when I think of how many websites and applications the authors must have created accounts on to gather the source material for this book.)

The illustrations are invaluable, giving real, practical and tangible evidence of the larger patterns and trends that DSI identifies. It's one thing to say "Talk Like a Person!" (pp. 26) -- it's a whole other thing to see example after example of succesful social software sites that accomplish this with grace. I'll point out, as well, that the authors succeed in following their own advice: the entire book is written in a friendly, straightforward manner. This is professional advice, given by professionals, and never feels 'dry' or overly-academic.

I feel that one of the greatest services the book provides is in identifying and, perhaps more importantly, NAMING all of these patterns that we can see in evidence across contemporary sites. In my day-to-day work activities, I have taken to referring to many of these patterns by name ("Wait, are we just propping up a Potemkin Village here?") DSI has started to permeate my working mind, and inculcated itself into my patterns of discourse and persuasion. That, IMO, is how you can tell a pattern library is well-done -- when it just feels so 'right' that it becomes easier to think within it than without.