Day 11 Agenda for Social Interaction Design
- Pre-readings:
2. Crumlish, C.& Malone, E.(2009). Designing social interfaces: principles, patterns, and practices for improving the user experience. O’Reilly Media.
For this book, we can only go through the table of contents.
3. What is social interaction design?
If you search “social media interaction design”, this slides which from gravity7.com will be the first result retrieved. I strongly recommend this slides as the “Social Interaction Design 101”.
- Agenda
1. What is interaction design? What does the interaction design look like in social media?
2. Technical Design — Interfaces
3. Psychological Design
4. What’s the social media interaction design?
- This section will mainly depend on our experience of engaging the social media and discussion.
Everything Is Miscellaneous Takeaway
Everything is miscellaneous: the power of the new digital disorder by David Weinberger
After Cluetrain Manifesto, David Weinberger described a great trend of the digitalization of our world again in Everything Is Miscellaneous. I thought the subhead seems like much more suitable to represent the author’s idea. In the Chinese ancient mythology, the initial world looked like an egg where inside is very chaotic. A giant slept in the egg and cleaved this primeval chaos by a big axe after he woke up, and contributed every part of his body to form the mountain, the river, the sun, the sky, the animals, and us, human beings. So we’ve gotten the initial order since. In this book, what Weinberger defined the order of organization of the physical world is exact that initial one. After the knowledge and the language came about, a second order of organization appeared, which is the use of metadata to organize and categorize physical objects. Weinberger told many historical stories such as Plato and Aristotle to illustrate how people like to organize and categorize the world. But, one can never get the same two eggs on the table. Until the computers and their connections—networks have been developed, people didn’t really master the information. Because of getting rid of the limitation of the physical world, people can organize the information in anyway as long as the information explosion. Actually all the information are organized by the hierarchical hyperlinks. Besides this, the digitalization of the real world offered people the full authority to access the information, i.e. knowledge, and manipulate it. Since the digital file which consists of bit can be easily split, we are able to deal with the information in any way we want. But I have said, the author didn’t want to this world go back to the chaos. Disorder just meant the ease of learning knowledge. Learn more, gain more. We will know the physical world better.
Pop Stars and Their Online Social Activities
Miley Cyrus, who may be a very famous pop star or movie star, I don’t know, left Twitter. I read this piece of news from mtv.com. Cyrus delivered an explanation in the form of a rap. In the video she raps, " I stopped livin’ for moments and started living for people … I want my private life private." … "Everything that I typed and everything that I do/ All those lame gossip sites take it and they make it news." It is obvious that Cyrus had been disturbed by her interactions with the social media. I don’t know whether other famous people are suffering this as the same as her. I assume some are. However, on another continent, pop stars are jumping into the ocean of social media in a hurry.
Through the observation on the Chinese blog and the literature review, I found the main function of the blogging in China is just for entertainment. That’s why so many pop stars create their blogs on the portal websites. The professional blog websites like Blogger or WordPress are not as popular as the blog tools which provided by the portal websites in China. As mentioned in Content Nation, the blogger of most famous blog in China is an actress and director. Opposite to Cyrus, too many stars are enjoying to expose their privacy to the public to sensationalize themselves. Why the reserved people from a traditional country which has a long history become so dissipated? As an audience, I have been tired of knowing their gossip. I want their private life private. I thought, without beliefs, people can never inhibit their behavior.
Google Building Maker Tryout
"Building Maker is a 3D modeling tool for adding buildings to Google Earth. It’s fun to use, and an easy way to get on the 3D map." As a collaborative tools, Google building maker contributes its convenience to the construction of the virtual 3D world. I tried out this amazing tool and created an apartment building in the Valencia, Spain as below. The tool’s as simple as possible for the novices to do what the architects are doing. The virtual buildings are modeled based on the photos from several perspectives. What user only have to do is aligning each vertex of the new boxes or pyramids to in each photo. However, I have to download the Google SketchUp to refine these artworks. I can make my building as exquisite as possible by Maya or 3Ds Max. But I had to stop my construction at that time. Though as a veteran of 3D modeling, I don’t use SketchUp. Even if it is admitted that SketchUp is much more easily to learn than the professional tools, I have no time to learn it. Such a question came about that how to make the experts to be more effective and useful in the social collaboration.
I was imagining the solution to this problem. You know we can switch the display mode of Google earth between OpenGL and DirectX. In the same way Autodesk 3Ds Max does. So if the API exists, I can call the 3Ds Max software to do the beautification, or integrates parts of the controls into the Building Maker itself. Definitely the calling of the driver of the display card in the web browser will be referred to. No such solutions exist though. On the other side of this coin, why not put the building maker into the new version of Google Earth? It seems like perfect. Autodesk’s already developed the development kits for CAD. I believe that for its tools of 3D modeling is coming. Anyway, more integration could bring more effective collaboration in the process of content generation. I am looking forward to what I have said in the previous post that to build up a virtual community by these tools.
Group/Multi-talkers Discussion online
During last week I was preparing the presentation of CGT511, which is about a paper on the novel method of resizing the image. Although I missed the final speech of the presentation due to the gone voice, I have indeed experienced a fantastic journey of prepping on Twitter.
My partner and I have only discussed a little in the classroom. We started on Twitter. After several tweets, we tabled a proposal in which the work was split into two sections to be prepared and would be finalized as a combination. Then we got into the respective PowerPoint slides process. We’ve tweeted to communicate and exchange. When each section’s done, I emailed my slides to my partner and waited for the feedback. As expected, my partner offered me several good suggestions. After modification and refining, I sent him the finalized slides although without the style. Because of my sick leave, I missed our perfect show. But I believe that my partner has completed an excellent job.
The Internet released us from scheduling the face-to-face meetings frequently. At the era of instant messenger, we still had to meet in a virtual environment at the same time. We had little time to think about what we were saying which was relatively private. The Twitter talk is open. Ever I expected that someone would join our open conversation to supplement some fresh air. I think that’s one part of what the charm of Twitter is. As playing a role of information provider, Twitter has done a good job. However I am looking forward to the improvement of its characteristic of that what we called “real-time”. Once I pressed ENTER to send a message, I am not sure how long would I get the reply. Another charm? I don’t think so. As long as we know the online/offline status who we are talking to, definitely IM will die.
Also what I did last week was constructing a super high building in a short time—on a SNS website which very similar to Facebook. Why constructing the building? Because we call that writing one message on friend’s wall as “constructing one floor”. Guess what? Three people constructed 45 floors in 22 minutes. Conversations crossed. Vaguely I saw the vision of the dying BBS.
Above are the two main ways I am interacting with others online in nearly real time right now. I am very surprised that I almost abandoned the IM. The dying tools are surviving inside the new tools. That may be the creative integration what I’ve said.
Here Comes Everybody Takeaway
It is true that the effects come up earlier than the study of the origins. When I closed the book of Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky, I smiled to myself—How related between what this book talks about and a Chinese movie I’ve just seen. It’s about Human Flesh Search Engine, which is a phenomenon of massive researching using Internet media such as blogs and forums. It is based on massive human collaboration, hence the name. Also you can know what is human flesh search engine through this Times article—“Human flesh search engines: Chinese vigilantes that hunt victims on the web”.
One can not be anonymous on the Internet anymore. If you do something bad online, so congratulations! The new formed organization which consists of the netizen will be powerful to draw you out through your family, your friends and anyone who has relationship with you. Then judge you morally. Here comes everybody!
The prerogative of spreading the information shifts from the elite to grassroots by the characteristics of the internet society, which contains the high freedom, high interactivity, decenteration and the flattening of the social structure. In this online virtual organization, the member could become the leader by the re-empowerment. This process will definitely be reinforced when “personal motivation meets collaborative challenges”. Everyone is organized. Who allows? The government, or the law?
Plurk vs. Twitter
After twittering some days, I was trying another microblogging tools-Plurk during the break. Honestly, I like Plurk, which is one year old, rather than Twitter because of its more lively interface and message displaying first . Despite the difference of the appearances of the two, I found three interesting aspects that Plurk exceeds in some ways.
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The message roll/timeline. Plurk has an interactive timeline on the top that shows threads and makes it easier to follow a conversation. In contrast, Twitter has a regular style of the message list. It’s understandable that the goal of the design of Twitter is for user to post/examine the information quickly and clearly.
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Karma. The function of Karma can be find in the P2P sharing websites or forums. The amount of Karma is a measurement of the degree of the user’s involvement. Karma is also a kind of virtual cash in Plurk which can get more emotions. Yes, the emotions are also amazing which are particular in Plurk. It seems like a incentive system built up by Karma—participate more, get more.
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The range of the audience. In Plurk, a follower is defined as a fun. Even there is also a circle of friends. Sometimes to be a fan is not as the same as to be a friend.
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Tweet the Plurk. I can’t imagine I found what I plurked in Twitter. Even if nonreversible, it seems like that Plurk stuck a knife into the heart of Twitter.
Twitter serves for information however Plurk does as a kind of experience. There’re larger avatar, colorful buttons, and beautiful characters on the main page of Plurk as well as game-like features to it that make you want to invite more friends, post/plurk more often and get more involved. Plurk is evaluated that not fit the business by someone. But who knows?
Born Digital Takeaways Plus
Only questions:
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How much differences among the digital natives who born in the different countries?
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You know digital natives are affected by the virtual world much more. If the differences exist, what’s the reason?
Looking forward to the excellent answers.
Final Project Proposal for TECH621
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-Aimed Social Media Tool-
In the final project, I would like to select BLOGGING as my research object. According to my objective of this research, which is to compare the use conditions under the two different culture backgrounds and furthermore to attempt to make constructive suggestions for the connection of the social media.
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-Contexts and Problems-
Historically, the article “What is Web 2.0?” by Tim O’Reilly was published in September 30, 2005. And in November 22, the journal of Chinese Internet Weekly translated and copied it. However, as for myself experience, in China, the current application of the social media, such as blogging, is quite different from in the United States. As so far, social media has become the important part of American’s individual life and business, but not of Chinese’s.
Especially for the individual blogs, which are most close to a student, differences are obvious and influential. The differences could be formulated for several reasons, such as the country developmental status, the politics, the tradition, etc. Thus the research attempts to compare the differences in the purpose of the blogging usage and find out the primary reasons. As the first step of improvement process of the social media globalization, it is necessary to develop this research.
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-Research Questions-
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The comparison of use purpose of the individual blogs between China and US.
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The reasons of the differences which based on the comparison.
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-Methodologies-
For the investigation of American’s blogging behavior, there is plenty of information from the class discussion and the course literature reviewing. Hence, the research method for this part will be literature reviewing.
For the investigation of Chinese’s blogging behavior, especially the purpose of blogging, I would like to make a survey among different people groups in the two or more cities in China. The topic or the questions in the survey will be around the blogging usage, emphasizing the use purpose. The groups will cover the people who are working or studying in institutions, business, and universities. For analyzing the collected data, I prefer using the quota sampling. I will get an official report about the proportional distributed rates of the amount of Chinese netizen or blogger by gender or age or academic qualifications. Then I will sample my data by these rates and analyze.
After the comparison, it is assumed that differences will be obtained. The research will continue to find out the reason of the differences by analyzing from the perspectives of politics, developmental status, culture, and historical tradition.
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-Presentation Format-
The project will be presented as a research paper in APA format.
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-Timelines-
Oct, 7 Project proposal due
Oct, 8 – Oct, 28 Review of the exiting research
Oct, 8 – Oct, 28 Literature of American part reviewing
Oct, 14 – Oct, 28 Survey in China
Oct, 29 – Nov, 11 Analyze the collected data and continue the literature reviewing
Nov, 12 – Nov, 17 Combine to the first draft paper
Nov, 18 – Dec, 2 Modify the first draft paper and check the APA format
Dec, 3 – Dec, 16 Continue Modify the research paper
Dec, 16 Project due
Virtual or Real?
The above picture is the snapshot of the special edition of the microblogging tools of Sina.com for the National Day of P.R. China. Facing towards this kind of interface, do you have a feeling that you are chatting with others in the simulative physical world?
I assume that if we could spend our online time as same as we live in the real physical world. The same buildings of the community, the same but many more neighbors, driving the same car to the same store… I know I know it costs too much time to produce the photorealistic three dimensional models and has too high nondeterminacy, but why don’t we get help from the power of social networks. Like Wikipedia, we can construct a communitipedia by simulating the communities, the city, and the planet we are living. Although you have the same hierarchical relationships in this virtual community, you could make many more new friends without the obstacle of the long distance. Also imagine that, when you go shopping in Amazon, you drive your car to the Amazon Book Store, choose the goods with the shopping carte which is transformed from your car automatically. Is that cool? Tell you a secret, I have done the prototype.
