Five things that make social networks work

I took the time to ready this rather academic paper published by First Monday, Five heuristics for designing and evaluating Web-based communities by Linda M. Gallant, Gloria M. Boone, and Austin Heap. Basically, I read this and tried to translate it into normal speak.

Five things that make social networks work

• Tools that allows users to interact in creative new ways. These tools need to be flexible and user-centric.
• Membership settings which allows users to customize how and whether other users can interact with them. It is important to give users the ability to organically create groups with customizable membership access.
• Ability for users to customize their public identities and provide tools that allow users to create public biographies.
• The primary benefit to using a social network is being able to communicate. The primary task of social networks seems to be some form of “dating”.
• User need tools to customize their “space” within the larger social network.

This study was centered on MySpace and Facebook. But none of the items they found seem to identify why either web community is vital or successful. Neither, does it indicate whether they will succeed in the future.

0 comments | Mar 21, 12:02 | by Tim Bednar user-experience web2

If you enjoyed this article, Subscribe to Turtle Interactive by Email and get more like this sent directly to your inbox. Or hire Tim Bednar for your next project.