Beyond the Like Button to Social Experience Design
Most organizations understand the impact of social media and are diligently increasing their social presence and level of customer engagement across social networks. Additionally, all sorts of websites, not just the major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, are incorporating social features into their applications as a way of promoting better user engagement. Many online stores have made user generated reviews an integral part of their product catalogues. Smart enterprises can take advantage of similar dynamics to make both customer-facing and internal applications more engaging and useful but to do so successfully application architects and designers must leverage the principles of Social Experience Design.
Out with the Old: In With the New
Propelling out of an age of broadcast media, brand messages still shouted from platforms can barely be heard over the din of the participating masses. Â The Web continues to undergo transformative changes across multiple dimensions. One change is the transition from the Web of branded content and commerce to the Social Web. This has altered the competitive landscape for Web-centric companies, such as Google and Yahoo and, in the future, this will have a business impact on most enterprises.
As broadcasting loses its privilege and merges with participation, one-way brand stories told through advertisements are shifting into platforms for two-way conversation, engagement, interaction and experiences effectively transforming brand story broadcasting into brand experience-sharing.
Social Experience Design blends behavioral economics, experience design and media to encourage participation, optimize choices, and build engaging brand/product communities that integrate virtual and physical experiences.
What is Social Experience Design?
Social experience design is about the interaction between people rather than the interface between the human and the computer and while traditional software design can well control one persons experience with a system, you cannot predict or control how people will choose to interact with each other.
The successful design of social software requires a change in mindset from traditional software development, a move from a basic focus on human-to-computer interaction to a richer appreciation of how technology can support the complexities of people-to-people interaction.
Social Experience Design and Social Architecture are parallel to User Experience (UX) Design and are used for designing compelling and engaging social experiences.
Rupa is a former Happiest Mind and this content was created and published during her tenure.
