Since community website are also ‘Social’ websites, I think the following article will be interesting to everybody who is following this module or manages/ has built his own social community website.
Designers normally approach interface design by crafting a channel that allows them to easily and efficiently control hardware or software; it’s all about the interaction between people and computers. Nowadays user interfaces are being approached in a different way: it’s no longer about people interacting with computers, but more about people interacting with people through computers.
This is the nature of the social Web. Social news websites, message boards, social networks, online stores and blogs all have some sort of user interaction going on, whether it’s comments on a blog post or social games on Facebook. The critical issue here is that people are not interacting directly with other people; rather the interaction occurs through a user interface.
So when you’re developing an user interface for a social website you need keep this in the back of your head, otherwise you won’t reach the goal you have set. To improve your ‘Social interface’ there are several techniques and options you can add so the users will have a better experience when using the community/social website.
A short description of these practical examples can be found below:
User points and Badges
Achievement, and more importantly, the feeling of achievement, can play a big part in social websites and games. You may be familiar with the massive multi-player games that have a system whereby players progress through levels as they play the game. Each level brings more prestige to the player and so keeps them playing more — with the next level always just a little bit out of reach.
Unlockable Features as Rewards
Points and badges are superficial prizes: they’re all about ego. You can go a step further and offer tangible benefits to your biggest contributors, such as by unlocking new features for your website or application. Unlocking new features differs from things like badges and points because the user isn’t interested here in building their ego; they’re interested in getting more value out of your website or application.
Reply Notifications
A popular feature on blogs and message boards is email-based notification of new replies to your messages. The feature works like this: you submit a new post to a social website, and when somebody replies, you are notified by email. This allows you to keep track of new replies without having to visit the website.
Dealing With Troublemakers
However much we want our community members to all get along, there will inevitably be one or two people who seem to want to cause nothing but trouble. Unfortunately, one rotten apple can spoil the barrel, so you’ll want to deal with these troublemakers quickly and efficiently.
Reply Threading
Threading, or branching, is a way to organize comments and posts on message boards and blogs. A thread, or branch, is a collection of comments that stem from one particular post, and so they focus the discussion on whatever that parent post is about. Threads organize different topics on the same page, usually by indenting the child comments under the parent. This technique may not work in all circumstances.
The full article can be found HERE
