Social Software

1. Social Software John C. Tang September 6, 2007

2. Top 10 student needs • Calendar management (assignments, events) • Computer (power, carrying, features) • Cellphone (texting, usability) • Bathroom controls (temp, sensors) • Transportation (bus schedules, parking)

3. Top 10 student needs • Communicating with family • Alarm clock waking up • Finding people (teammates, carpool) • Recommendations (dining, activities) • Earphones design

4. Website updates • Slides from lecture are posted later in the day • Link posted for every assignment • Discussion section topics for some weeks added to schedule (more coming) • Revised office hours for me: Tue, 2:00-3:30

5. Assignment: Map of Berkeley (Due Sept. 11) • Draw conceptual map of Berkeley that conveys your experience of the area • Introduce me to Berkeley! • Express visually, not with words (like Pictionary) • Create feature list • Show map to one other person not in CS160 • “Here’s a map of Berkeley I drew—tell me what you learn from it” • State relationship to person (e.g., friend, roommate) • Record number of features they recognize • Hand in 2 copies (black & white copy OK)

6. Grading criteria • How effectively the map communicates feature list to us (the teaching staff) • How effectively the map communicates feature list to user study participant (% features recognized) • Good design balance of how much information to include in the map • Enough to be interesting • Not too much to be cluttered • Keep target user in mind (me!) • Reflect on what you learned from user test

7. A word about grading… • I’m going to be more explicit about assignments • Please ask if you have any questions • Consider this first assignment as part of a “calibration” process, clarify expectations

8. Last call, standby passengers… • Hung, Sherry • Murphy, Gant • Glickman, Robert • Toraby, Farshad • Vilepchiukor, Arthur

9. Social software • Introduce basic types of social software • Recognize important aspects of social design Applications we all use, but why are they compelling?

10. Not just single human-machine interface

11. But a socially interconnected network

12. Leveraging social behavior • Others benefit from my work • I benefit from others’ work • The more people who participate, the more interesting it is (viral) • Social side effects from individual work • Linking social benefits with individual benefits • Leveraging social work (Tom Sawyer)

13. Beyond mainstream social software • Email • IM • Web pages • Multi-player games

14. Work / benefit tradeoff • Cardinal rule for why Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) applications fail • Disparity between who does the work and who gets the benefit Jonathan Grudin, “Why CSCW applications fail: Problems in the design and evaluation of organizational interfaces”, CSCW 1988 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/62266.62273

15. Social recommending • High data volume • Side effect of purchase records • Regionally customized • Dealing with data pollution (gifts)

16. Del.icio.us a social bookmarking website … designed to allow you to store and share bookmarks on the web, instead of inside your browser. • Access your bookmarks from anywhere, no matter whether you're at home, at work, in a library, or on a friend's computer. • Share your bookmarks publicly, so your friends, coworkers, and other people can view them for reference, amusement, collaboration, etc. • Find other people on del.icio.us who have interesting bookmarks and add their links to your own collection. Joshua Schachter http://del.icio.us/doc/about

17. Del.icio.us bookmarking and tagging • Lightweight widgets for • Adding a bookmark • Adding tags to index bookmarks • Interface for seeing • Tags applied to bookmarks • Other bookmarks that others have related to a bookmark • Social feedback—others are copying my bookmarks!

18. Del.icio.us aggregations • Popular • Recent

19. ‘Folksonomies’ • Meta-data created by users • Contrasts with expert indexing (e.g., Library of Congress) • Contrasts with author indexing (e.g., keywords, book index) • Whole society benefits from minority of fastidious “organizers” • Helping improve search (dogear)

20. Wikipedia • Peer-contributed content • Community moderated (status) • More diverse, “popular” slant on info • Journal article in Nature that found accuracy of Wikipedia comparable to Encyclopedia Britannica http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html • Can be “dynamic” at times

21. Temporal artifacts in Wikipedia • History flow visualization of “abortion” http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/985692.985765

22. Tagging • Indexing for my use • Shared with others • Disambiguating • Translation • Convergence on labels • Seeing others’ tags • Auto-complete

23. Cambridge, MA and Cambridge, UK

24. Searching for “azul”

25. Tag clouds • Usage, recency ~ interesting • Alphabetic for finding

26. Salience of usage, recency

27. Social reputations • eBay • Epinions • “genuine” reviews • Evolve over time

28. Viral adoption • Exposurequick installusagemore exposure • facebook applications

29. Leveraging physical traffic • ZoneTags • Exploiting location information on cameraphones • Tag photos with location • Suggest tags based on other photos from that location • PhotoSynth • Create 3-D model from photos taken from the same location

30. ZoneTag http://zonetag.research.yahoo.com/

31. Photosynth http://labs.live.com/photosynth/default.html

32. Social networking • facebook • MySpace • LinkedIn

33. Your favorite example • Yelp

34. Assignments: Commercial for idea (Due Sept. 12) and facebook application review (Sept. 18) • Take an idea (from idea list), prepare a 2-minute “commercial” (Sept. 12) • Presented live in Discussion Sections • If you can’t attend discussion section, you can submit a recording (narrated slideshow, video) • Review a facebook application (Sept. 18) • Try it yourself • Observe TWO (2) other people using it • Write review • Explain what it does (screenshot) • Explain what works well, what doesn’t • Include data from observing users

35. Criteria: Commercial for idea (Due Sept. 12) • Strict time-keeping—must stay within 2 minutes! • Must email any projected material to btsao@berkeley.edu • [cs160] in Subject line • by midnight, Tuesday, Sept. 11 (otherwise, present without projecting) • Effectively communicate idea • What’s the need? • Approach for solving it? • Is it a good idea? • Opportunity to help form teams, convince others to work with you

36. Criteria: Review facebook application (Due Sept. 18) • Pick an interesting application • Clearly explain to us what it does (illustrated) • Observe at least 2 non CS160 people using application (give demographic info) • Write review • What works well • What doesn’t work well • Support with evidence from observations • Suggested improvements • Shouldn’t be more than around 5 pages

37. Next time • Readings • Task-centered user interface design, by Clayton Lewis and John Rieman • Explore forming groups (looking for group formation by Sept. 13) • In class teaming • Discussion section commercials • Mix of skills • Ask us if you need help