As I have mentioned before, very often we get people asking for us to design Web 2.0 sites that incorporate community to some level. And while I am all for shorthand (e.g. coffee ordering at Timmie Hoe’s) and I have already written about what web 2.0 means to me, this time let me unpack what community is not. Because sometimes by figuring out what something is not, we get to the core of what it is.

Words that I will use interchangeably to describe community: village, watering hole, gathering place…you get the idea.

Here’s what community is not:

1. It’s not a label to throw up on your site. If you ain’t got community, it’s OK, you’ll get one soon enough. Just stick to what you do best and aim that thing at people who care and sure enough they will gather around and talk you up. You have to have something substantial behind the label to merit making your user click on the “community” button!
2. It’s not what you want it to be. If there is no freedom, there is no community. Censor people, tell them what they can or cannot do inside “your” community and you lose the game even before you start. While communities need a sense of order, people will hack the system to make it what they want it to be, and if the system is too rigid, they will move on to the next gathering place.
3. It’s not a one-way street. Look for perfect circles. I give you feedback on your app. You read that feedback (let people know you read everything they send!), and find that it’s a really good point. Celebrate my input, make me a beta tester, give me “special” access and I will become your brand advocate. Look to complete the feedback and communication loop and you have a lasting relationship with your audience.
4. It’s not just about belonging. People used to join clubs and professional associations just to put that membership on their resume. That’s not enough anymore. People expect communities to be useful. People also like communicating, so let them. The best online communities have strong communication. LinkedIn is not just a professional network, it also offers tools and features that allow people to ask questions, post jobs and communicate with each other in meaningful ways. Providing useful ways to communicate and abiding by personal choices around privacy and noise levels creates stronger (more loyal) communities.
5. The world ain’t flat, and neither are communities. People also like a pecking order, so give it to them. Give people someone/something aspirational, reward them for valuable contributions, so they keep making them. Leading from #3, giving people special status either based on contribution or quality of input is a great way to encourage increased community involvement. Call it karma, call it ranking, call it badges, but provide some sort of tangible, recognition for those that help others. Last fm doesn’t provide any type of rankings beyond what you get if you pay them for the service. But do a search on google for last.fm badges, and you will find people who have created graphics to celebrate the momentous event, when your playlist at last.fm reaches beyond a certain number of songs. Apple provides points that add up to status levels in their support forums. People aspire to receive points by answering questions. Apple wins by having a free support system for their products. People win by being celebrated as Apple gurus.
6. They don’t need it, you do. Because there is big money in online communities, everyone’s got one! So if you have a topic worth talking about, it’s being discussed within an online community somewhere. So don’t create community because you think your user “needs it’. They don’t need your community. You need community features because you want to be loved or at least make people care enough to gather around to talk about you. If you want loyal users and you want to be transparent about everything you do, the best way you can do that is to create a dialog with your consumer.
7. Communities are not just a bunch of people. I want to watch a movie tonight. Flashback to 15 years ago > pick up the newspaper > choose a pretty poster from the movies section > take my chances > go to local theatre > pay $4.99 cheap Tuesday price. Today, it costs over $20 for a movie and I got little time. I also don’t trust my eyes to pick from posters because let’s face it, my mum reads the paper; I scroll, point and click. So I pick online communities to find out what people thought of a movie. I don’t just read individual reviews; I look to see what a bunch of people as an aggregate said about a movie because a bunch cancels swing votes from the the easy-to-please and the gripers. Subjectivity is lost in an aggregate made up of large numbers, I hope. I can also follow specific people that seem to mirror what I like/hate and they become my gurus to help me make decisions. Check out Rotten Tomatoes or Riffs. Communities can be a sophisticated glowing ball of wisdom.
8. It don’t get built overnight! Actually, that’s a lie. It seems like Twitter’s success can be solely attributed to its insanely popular introduction at SXSW. But most online communities need to be seeded, watered and tended to, like a delicate plant that could become a really big-ass tree someday, but not tomorrow. See above for all the seeding, tending things you should consider doing. Love your community and dedicate the amount of resources that you believe is worth building a loyal audience for your product.

So to the gym bunny grandpa: I agree that real people are great to have a conversation with. But in terms of levels of trust, this is how I see the world:

Highest level: I trust my inner circle of family and friends to give me opinions on things because I know them well. I know Robina loves every movie she sees, I know Jo-Ann won’t probably like most “hollywood” flicks, and so I can take their opinion, and self-adjust their subjective opinion to balance out what I have felt about their reviews in the past.

Second level: I would tap into what large crowds think about one thing at an aggregate level because I believe about the power of the collective wisdom of crowds for most things *.

Bottom of the trust totem pole: You, my gym-schmoozer friend. Not because of your oh-too-tight tank and the hefty weight belt that hangs below your beer belly. Only because you are one voice and I can’t rely on your solitary opinion. It’s too risky.

Communities have power, and strong communities can strong and have immense value when they work well.
(* This mp3, points out when crowds don’t work!)

Back in June 06, I had written an article about a more human approach to brining users into the design equation. In the midst of packing and checking flight times, here is a PDF that has so far only been used by us internally and sent via email to our clients. It lists our process of highlighting user goals and marrying them with business goals. It is heavily influenced by Alan Cooper, and his book “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum“– a must-read for anyone involved in the design, management or development of an interactive project.

DesignStamp Persona Process

principality

For those of you who have never traveled with a designer, your photos must be, well, so normal. However, my poor camera frequently finds itself shooting odd subjects. From garbage cans, street signs or zooming in on random billboards. The world around us is highly designed. Everything we use, every object that helps us live our lives was designed by someone. Visiting a foreign country makes the designer in me work over-time. I want to capture the genius and the obtuse. As a tourist I am left staring at things I would ignore in my own city. I pay attention to what is probably mundane to the locals.

Here are 5 of the top photos that capture some interesting design solutions (4 good, 1 questionable)

London Tube.

Harry Beck created the London Underground map. By doing so he created a mapping system, now used around the world, to help people get from point A to point B. He ignored geographical accuracy and instead used color, lines and the circuit diagram metaphor to communicate clearly. The London Underground’s map and in-station signage are synced so even if you forget the name of the route, you can still find your way by finding the color of the line. Cognitive brilliance.

Antonio Gaudi.

If you are not familiar with Gaudi , you will be if you ever make a trip to Barcelona. Gaudi’s brilliant architecture dots the city and is now part of every tourist’s have-to-see list. Gaudi was very interested in blending what he learnt from nature into his work. So every building, every piece of furniture that Gaudi designed, ignores symmetry and instead focuses on the organic softness of curves or working with gravity and mathematics to create buildings that almost resemble living things. Gaudi didn’t just create beauty, he created work that was usable , livable and entirely experiential .

The Folding Pet Stores on the Las Rambla

Probably not as celebrated as the Gaudi buildings but still ingenious! On the busy Las Rambla you can stroll past tens of mini pet stores that sell everything from hamsters and snakes to various exotic birds. First of all, who would have thought that a row of pet stores on a busy pedestrian throughfare was necessary. Not sure. But what makes them so brilliant is that when the day is done, the store owner has to just pull in the walls of their store like the doors on a closet, put one lock, and viola their precious inventory is safe and concealed. The magic folding pet store doors function as part of the display during the day and secure the critters in a safe dark ventilated haven at night. Nifty!

Bicycling in Paris

Paris is dealing with the environmental and congestion issues posed by traffic by introducing the Velib bicycle system . Besides the kudos they deserve for the enviro-friendly bike program, I love their design solution to make it easy for people to tap into the system. Sign up using a well-designed interactive kiosk located at every bike parking station. Parking stations are located just about everywhere in Paris. Walk over to the bike stand, take out a bike and ride to your heart’s content (or till your time runs out). When it’s time to return the bike, simply find another bike stand (again, they are everywhere!) and put the bike in and boom you are done. Next day pick up another bike, and repeat. Simple, clean, elegant. (We saw Barcelona had it’s own smaller Bicing system).

Multi-Functional Garbage cans.

The last one, is in the "what were they thinking" category of design. Barcelona has recycling containers that replace old garbage cans in train stations. Awesome. Only problem, the labels to indicate what to put into which bin are uncolored, unlabelled, embossed icons on the container. I bet the contents have to sorted at the end of the day to account for laziness and mistakes, given the hard to see signage. The raised edges get dirty and scuffed as well. Paris has it’s own really big recycling solutions.

As you can see from the hump in the diagram above, most users settle just being un-newbie-ish, in terms of computer proficiency. If they can just get common tasks done, they rarely look for faster ways to do the same thing. This is not true for people who spend extended amounts of time, doing repetitive chores, or using the same app over and over again everyday.

I spend more time than I would like to ever admit, basking in the gentle glow of my radioactive monitor, typing as fast as I can with two fingers. I am a usability and interface snob. I hate using the mouse, and instead look for “accelerators” to get things done. The less menus that stand between me and the task that I want to do, the better. Hence it is only fitting that I share a few apps that help me get things done a bit faster, more efficiently and are the cause for the smallest of celebrations. So here is my top 10 list of apps, big and small (only 2 pay cost money), that help me get stuff done everyday:

1. Firefox: Not much to say, chances are you know about this killer browser and your IT people at work are stubbornly trying to NOT install it, but Firefox is awesome with it’s tabbed goodness and especially powerful with all the add-ons that make it so much more compelling as an alternative to the problematic IE7. (del.icio.us, better gmail, dragdropupload, auto copy are my current faves. If you are Ok with more memory hogging add-ons, you can get weather updates or control itunes as well). (Free)
2. AutoHotKey: Not a lot of people probably know about this little gem, but imagine having a global spellcheck across EVERY application, being able to set little type shortcuts so that typing like “GD” automatically become “Gagan Diesh” or “jchk” becomes “Just checking into to get a status update on” (the project manager side of me uses that sentence a lot to start email conversations). (Free)
3. ToDoList: Love this app for the fact that it does just one thing. Keeps tabs on what the heck I am spending my time on. Really useful for billing and not a memory hog like beat applications such as QuickBooks. Can also be used as the name suggests to create to-do lists that can be exported out into other apps, but I use iGoogle for that (see next). (Free)
4. iGoogle: Not really an app but a collection of widgets that you can download to create your own personalized Google homepage. Yes, I sold my soul to Google a while ago. Now I happily allow it to serve up latest headlines, to-do lists, an ambient clock and calendar and emails to my homepage every day, all the time. (Free).
5. Google Desktop: Talking about privacy, I don’t allow Google Desktop to connect online to bring web content to my desktop. What I do end up using it for all the time is a fast app launcher. Just press Control twice, type in the first few characters of your app, press enter, and voila, your app is launched. Beats using the point, click, cascading nightmare that is “start” menu. QuickSilver on the Mac side does the same thing for me, and will probably be bought by Apple given that it makes the OS much better with it’s features. (Free)
6. MWSnap: All design geeks pay attention, everyone else look away? A freeware app to take screenshots. Let’s you take pics of portions of your screen, add mouse pointers and copy the image to your clipboard. Magic when you are writing a 60 page usability review and have to take screencaps of various horrible usability mistakes on a website. Ugly icon, useful app. (Free)
7. RSIGuard: So many apps, and so much clicking eventually leads to problems such as carpel tunnel syndrome. The first time I felt numbness in my fingers, I searched online to find resources relating to RSI or Repetitive Strain Injuries. This app not only helps by providing “auto click” but also provides timed breaks and plays short video exercises during those breaks. Even Uglier icon, thoughful app. ($)
8. MindManager: Good Information architecture is at the core of any interactive project. For this, we love MindManager. Too bad it’s not available on Macs(thanks for the comment from Gaelen/Mindjet). Great app to make quick sitemaps, brainstorm information hierarchy, create and manage content flow. Good for redesigning and creating websites from scratch. Freemind is a healthy, but less robust, free alternative. ($)
9. Vidalia: Too geeky for most, but if you are willing to tinker around and little your inner pocket protector person come out for a bit, you can better protect your online privacy with the combination of these two apps. They are packaged together under the name Vidalia. Not for those who want a nice pretty wizard to define their privacy settings. Two ugly icons, one uber geek package. (Free)
10. I am told top 10 lists look better than top 9, but heck if I want to have some time to play my Wii, I can’t possibly have more apps running at the same time, slowing down my poor lil computer! Time for me to do my RSI exercises… till next month!

It was a typical interaction design project, testing initial assumptions, validating business logic with a user-centric philosophy and asking simple questions like “why” and “how”.

However, looking back at the project and the path it has taken over the last few months, it has been anything but typical.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Rouxbe.

Rouxbe helps people to cook simple recipes using video. Gone are the days of printing off complicated recipes and guessing what those fancy French words mean, and not being sure just how to get to that all important end-result. You can now have a chef walk you through the process without the camera attempting to make the chef the celebrity. Right now, you have subscriptions to magazines that show beautiful food. Now see how that food is made, and you control your viewing experience. No ads to skip through. Just lots of videos recipes. Amazingly shot and served. You don’t need to follow along. Just watch, learn and then go make.

Rouxbe was different for DesignStamp for a lot of reasons. Our commitment to Rouxbe is ongoing and our involvement is much more collaborative and immersive than the consultative role that we usually play. We have been involved in the building of Rouxbe, it’s online presence and technical development from ground up. From building the proprietary Flash player, to creating a complete website including e-commerce components, we are working with Rouxbe to take the user through a smooth, hassle-free experience. Nothing should come between the new user and the food recipes that they can sample.

One of the other key things that makes Rouxbe different is it’s commitment to a cause much higher than profit. To feed starving kids around the world. Having worked in the field for years, one can get a bit jaded and just about everyone you talk to has the next big Web 2.0 idea that they want to bring to market and get bought by Google. One of my first meetings with Joe Girard, the CEO of Rouxbe was not about the financial promise that Rouxbe held, but about Rouxbe for Life. A good cause that is whole heartedly supported and believed in by all of us that are working to build the Rouxbe brand. In fact, we all contribute money towards the cause each time we eat a meal together (working at Rouxbe means that there are a LOT of delicious meals before, after and during every meeting!)

In the next few months, I hope to be able to share details about our design process and the development of Rouxbe as a trusted brand. Till then, I invite you to try Rouxbe and give us your feedback. After all, the proof is in the pudding. Or more precisely, in the Crème Brulée!

So do you think that you are a private person who has managed to protect your privacy in an increasingly un-private world? Consider this:

1. Google knows when you are bad and when you are good. Think about all the things, pleasures, treatments, fun-things-to-do, people, secrets that you have shared with Google simple by typing into that innocuous search box. Everything starts there, and they keep records.
2. And that search engine you use (Google or not) can not only point to all your search queries in the last few years, but heck, it can show people where you live. Give them directions to, and a picture of, your house (I am going to pretend that I still hold a vestige of privacy close to my heart, and instead of showing you my house, I invite you to look at yours from space by going to Google Maps or flying over your neighbourhood by downloading Google Earth)
3. Most websites are unscrupulous about sharing your personal information even when they cut and paste a good looking privacy policy from their competitor’s website. Take a look at some of the complaints about this on this website. I continue to receive emails from Dell even after trying many times to "unsubscribe" from their newsletters (which I never signed up for in the first place). Serves me right for giving my real email address just to buy a computer or two!
4. The average Brit is photographed some 300 times each day by surveillance cameras. North America is not far behind.

So what does privacy amount to today? A lot of revenue for some companies for one. They trade, sell, buy, coerce and steal the private information of the average joe blow, just to sell them the right things at the right time. A qualified customer is a customer that is easier to seduce. If a company knows what you like, they can offer things to you that will more likely meet your needs and tastes. Amazon can attribute this concept of personalized results to much of it’s success. Gmail spiders through emails to provide freakishly topical advertisements that relate to a particular email’s content.

And what we are feeling about privacy right about now? We are being a bit schizophrenic it seems. While we are getting more paranoid about our own privacy, we are also more willingly to give away parts of it in exchange for things that purport to improve our lives somehow.

Privacy is up for grabs.

You too, are OK with giving away your privacy if you got something ‘nice’ in return. Prove value to you, and you will give away information about yourself willingly. Some pieces you hold more dearly, some you don’t. What can be worrying is when people give away privacy unwittingly (careful) or without even being aware of doing so.

I try consciously to choose wisely about how and where I am becoming less private about my life. Why be un-private at all? Because I have realized to get some, I need to give some. If my privacy is worth something to someone else, I may sell it to them. While using fake email addresses and aliases for getting me some things I need to be me, Gagan Diesh from Vancouver BC not Jh from La, Ca, 90210, to get true value.

So who has me? Has me= My personal info in some form that they could use to learn more about me?

• Google grid has me. Whether it is spreadsheets, documents, Gmail or calendar. I am addicted. They all connect so seamlessly and in ways that Microsoft is still trying to work out for their products. My personalized Google page gives me rapid access to my world which Google now controls. I can invite others to collaborate with the real me, and in turn they too become part of Google’s ever expanding world. By the way, you have to watch this video to understand what Google Grid is (and can be) all about.
• Flickr has me. It lets me share my photos with the world. I still keep lots of private photos on Flickr to share with a select few, but every now and then submit to the urge to share photos with strangers.
• Del.icio.us has me. It saves my favorite links from around the world, and allows me to share links with my students and everyone else.
• Paypal has me because I can’t trust making financial transactions with eBay buyers using fake names. So they have access to my bank account and my real name and email address.
• Amazon has me because they offer lovely services like wish lists and easy ways to recommend good books. They also offer cheap books and I don’t have to suffer Vancouver rain to trudge down to my local bookstore. I can order my favorite books from the comfort of my un-private computer desk.
• Skype has me because I use it to talk to clients internationally. Heck when I am lazy I even chat with people on Skype if my phone is in the other room!
• LinkedIn has me because it helps me network professionally and protects me from spam very well.
• My local grocery store has me so I can scan my card and get discounts. They also get to share this info with my AirMiles provider. Suddenly I become a blip on someone’s computer screen each time I buy a family pack of athlete’s foot cream (ewww!).
• Oh my, this list is getting scary… Even my local sandwich deli has me, I keep my "buy 6, get one free" card with my name over there. Heck, did I even enter that draw to win a lunch for my entire office, by giving them my business card? Did I also leave a business card on the bulletin board at my Gym? Networking or privacy risk? Did I also sign up for that gas swipe card so I could pay a zillion dollars for gas more quickly at the pump?

Note to self: Maybe I am just a privacy slut trading my privacy for cheap trinkets?

Ok, I still have boundaries. Kinda.

• I hate Plaxo and all that it purports to do for (to) people. I don’t trust it and with good reason.
• I am wary of registering my software even when I have bought it and not downloaded it. I see no reason to. I have never got better service by doing so.
• I still use email aliases when posting on newsgroups because I can’t stand cluttering searches for my name on Google with outdated screams for tech help or recruiting people.
• I don’t forward jokes. I chastise people for sending out thought viruses (emails that tell you to forward them to others to warn them, bless them, or reward them!)
• I am selective about who I give my email address to, I set up rules to deal with junk and know better than to even open the most amazingly imaginative subject lines (Viagra is so yesterday, spammers are now using a haiku of business talk in the subject line like the one I got today: “Brand motivated faculty”. I almost opened the email, but Gmail protected me by moving it to the spam box automatically)

So maybe I am not so bad. Maybe I still have a vestige of privacy left. Maybe I’ll be ok after all. Maybe I will win a Free iPod if I just answer a few simple questions.

Most businesses rely on statistical data to learn about there customer aka user. Be it demographic info such as age, income, occupation etc. But we find that the richness of talking to the actual users and learning about their experiences cannot be found in the best drawn statistical chart. Statistical averages are useful for large scale projects such as deciding where a highway should be built, but a humanized approach works better when designing software or marketing collateral. We find that creating user profiles helps us remain objective in our process, validate our design decisions and intuitions about potential problem areas. This is an example of a user persona that helped us conduct a usability study on our client’s existing web service.

Besides those good old statistics about demographics of your user, try and get some empirical data about your target audience. Do you know about how and why your user buys your product? What is their current perception about you and where did they get this impression? How different is this impression from the marketing message you put out there? Here’s a brief checklist of items to find out about your user:

• Experience: How long have they know about you, and your products? How did they come in contact with your brand? What similar products do they use currently? This will teach you not only your competition but also about your users experience with your product domain.
• Relationship to you? What do they know about you? What do they NOT know about you? This will help shape marketing, and brand awareness initiatives. Good branding is about creating top of mind awareness. And if you haven’t got to that stage with your core audience yet, there may be some work ahead.
• Relationship to technology: An easy way to figure this one out is to really hear how people talk about technology (Phrases such as ‘That thingie to click on…’ speak volumes about your user’s comfort level and exposure to technology). Alpha geeks (those who adopt early and often) have different relationship to technology than laggards. And both may impact your bottom-line differently even if your product has little to do with cutting edge technology. After all there is no point creating a complex interactive flash movie about your product, if it’s controls will frustrate yourt users and take focus away from your product.
• Language: Pot-taah-toh or Put-tay-toe? Do they use the same words that you do to describe the end-product? If you work in the music industry for example, does your user think of their music as songs or tracks? Use the language that works for your user. If you are a b2b enterprise, what does that business call their target audience? Use that word (example: subscriber?) to refer to their customer
• Humanize your brand: Ask people that if your company were an actor which actor would it be? It’s probably better to be seen as a Brad Pitt than a Jack Nicholson if your company deals with cutting edge technology. Not good if your brand is seen as a Dame Judy Dench when your aim was to attract a young, energetic crowd.
• Drivers of purchase decisions: What is important to your user when it comes to your product domain? You may be surprised by the answers you get. You might think that people only care about price, but they actually base decisions on credibility. You might think that people look for deals, but turns out they just trust what their son, daughter, niece or nephew tells them to buy. Finding the decision drivers will help focus your energies in the right direction.

I could go on, but the idea is that we want to find ‘human information’ not numbers. Wisdom not data. No one has 2.24 kids and is of 30 to 40 years of age. Averages only get you so far. We think better design happens when we can imagine who it is, that we are designing for.

"When I design, I design for people, not for an abstract entity, a market, but for real people. People I know, people I love."
— Konstantin Grcic (European furniture designer)