Luke has made some great slides about Social Web Application Design, saying some very sensible things very well. I particularly like the “System” diagram that shows how, when thinking about a simple photo, how it can be connected to other entities and related, aggregated and re-presented.
I wonder about the last slide though…. bury the submit button? Seriously?… Make it harder to contribute so that only the clever get to do it? Is that really what you’re saying Luke?
Hi Tom, The last slide is intetionally conforntational. Systems require constraints but user experience professionals (be they researchers or designers) generally assume they need to make tasks as easy as possible for the people using their products. However, value can increase when barriers exist. Here’s some exmaples:
€œAs a free site, TaoBao suffers [€¦] because it costs nothing to list an item, it’s a haven for spam and unrealistic starting bid prices, just as eBay’s own American site becomes a clutter of noise when it rolls out the occasional free-listing day. That just proves that the quality of traffic is just as important as the quantity.€ €“Is eBay Dead in China?, 2005
€œWikipedia will now require users to register before they can create articles. The website hopes that the registration requirement will limit the number of stories being created. €˜What we’re hopeful to see is that by slowing that down to 1,500 a day from several thousand, the people who are monitoring this will have more ability to improve the quality.€™€ -Wikipedia Tightens the Reins