“In this view, avatars are not images or characters radically separated from the “real” players; they are aspects of players’ real-life identities played out on virtual stages, not unlike the way the same people might “perform” at frat parties or wedding receptions or in classrooms and restaurants.”

This distinction has profound implications for the design of social software. Designing a social tool following the representation model is a relatively straight-forward, but ultimately limiting approach. Essentially, it involves providing a finite set of fields that users can fill in to describe themselves. However, if we wish to create an application that really resonates with users and becomes part of their social life, it must provide a space for more fluid and dynamic types of identity performance. The choices designers make about the structure of the platform will influence the subjectivities that users develop and experience: “As interaction designers, we might ask how the stages, or interactive ecologies, we create regulate or encourage identity performance.” Since I don’t play many videogames, the only avatar I have much experience with is my Facebook profile. I wonder, in what ways does Facebook enable or constrain different types of identity performance?

A few years ago, Alice Marwick wrote an interesting critique about the model of identity represented in social networking sites (SNS’s) such as Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. Marwick argues that the finite profile options in SNS’s are far too limiting compared to the diverse open-ended ways that people express themselves in everyday life. In her words, “the rigid profile structure encourages the user to present him or herself in a way that is partly constructed by the application, not the user”. Interestingly, Marwick also points out that the type of identity performance available in SNS’s may be related to the sites’ capitalist interests: “The user is portrayed not as a citizen, but as a consumer. [SNS] applications encourage people to define themselves through the entertainment products they consume: music, movies, books, and television show.” The central point of Marwick’s argument is that early SNS’s were following a strictly representational model, which she describes as the “problem of authentiticity”: “Social networking sites overall presume that each user has a single “authentic” identity that can be presented accurately.” This assumption is evidenced by the fact most SNS’s do not allow users to create more than one profile. For instance, Facebook used to require all profiles to be tied to a valid university e-mail address. Friendster even went as far as to remove all profiles that they suspected as being “fake”. This rigid, singular construction of identity is in contradiction with the way we all perform identity in everyday life; we present ourselves in various ways depending on the audience and context.

In my personal experience, I believe Facebook has been guilty of these criticisms, especially in its earliest incarnations. When I first starting using the service in 2005, there were not many features available and so the interface emphasis was mostly on user profiles. I recall that most users would typically fill out almost every field of their profile. The result was a laundry list of interests, favorite books, tv, music, etc. that ultimately conveyed a rather shallow and generic picture of a person. As Facebook’s user base grew, the problem of having a single profile for all audiences also became very apparent. Facebook started out as site for college students only. Once the site opened up to highschool students, alumni, and eventually everyone, many users were surprised or embarrassed at having their “college persona” suddenly visible to the whole world. Privacy options in the site became more robust, but this was often not enough. I recall one friend’s reaction when both his mother and grandmother friended him on Facebook. He quickly adjusted his privacy settings so that they would see his limited profile and not any of his pictures. Unfortunately, this setting did not apply to events. He was shocked to find out that his mom and grandma had received notification that he was attending a theme party titled “Future Sex”; they were even able to view the racy invite and party photos.

Countless stories of embarrassment have been written about SNS’s. What I find surprising is that they are usually framed in terms of issues of security, privacy, morality, etc. The point overlooked is that while SNS’s are attempting to bring identity online, they are failing to support the kinds of robust and fluid performance that people are used to. It’s not just that Facebook needs to provide better privacy options, or that college students need to be more careful with what they post. The larger problem is stated by Marwick: “the awkwardness and difficulty inherent in representing oneself in fixed, codified ways will need to be addressed if social networking applications are to move beyond the current fad to become truly useful services for internet users.” Marwick’s research has found that users develop creative strategies in order to negotiate the awkwardness of SNS profiles: “users may choose particular linguistic styles (irony, sarcasm, satire) when constructing their profiles… Other people identify themselves within SN applications by using aliases … Others create “safe profiles”, where publicly exposed information is carefully chosen to avoid possible problems“. I have personally known many friends on Facebook to use each of these approaches. These examples of user adaptation provide important signals for how the application needs to change to better support user needs.

Through a combination of site changes and shifting user behavior, I believe the Facebook community has recently been evolving towards more sophisticated forms of self-presentation. This is happening in two ways. First, the focus of the application experience has shifted from user profiles to user activity. Users can now express themselves in many ways other than textual self-description. They can write status updates, short notes or blog entries, post links, photos, videos, etc. The landing page for the site displays a news feed with all your friends recent activity where you can comment and respond directly. In this way, users can have lots of conversations and interactions without ever navigating to someone’s profile page. On the profile page itself, the self-descriptive information has been replaced with a news feed of that user’s activity. In parallel, I have noticed that many veteran users have been gradually removing the biographical information from their profiles. In short, the means of self-presentation on Facebook is shifting from that of static representation to more dynamic, contextual action.

A second important trend I’ve seen on Facebook (though one that still needs a lot of work) is an increase the ability to customize identity information for different audiences. When the site first unveiled the news feed feature, many users were outraged to have their every activity suddenly broadcast to their entire network. Facebook defended itself by saying that the information had always been accessible in different places of the site and that users had privacy control for their information. This argument completely missed the point that users want control over exactly how, when, and to whom they present themselves. It’s not enough that privacy controls exist; they need to be integrated into the user experience in an intuitive and transparent way so that every time a user interacts with the system they know who they are communicating with. With the last few redesigns, I believe the application has gotten a little better at this. For example, when you friend someone you can choose to let them see either your full or limited profile. Within privacy settings, users can control the accessibility of each different type of profile data. Still I think Facebook could do more to allow users to share specific information with only specific people. One promising new feature allows users to organize their friends list into different groups. In the future, this may allow users to customize how they present themselves to each group (e.g. work friends, college friends, family, etc.) just like we all do in everyday life.

Overall, I think the concepts introduced by Bardzell & Bardzell can help the designers of Facebook and other social software to create more compelling and valuable services. By thinking about avatars as subjectivities and about interfaces as stages for performance, designers will be more likely to create spaces for creative identity play, as the Bardzell’s describe: “The symbolic possibilities available online, when joined with the capabilities of the interface, amount to a software of the self, a tool that enables users to play with their own subjectivities.” I believe such tools will ultimately allow for more natural, human, and fulfilling online experiences.

References
Intimate Interactions: Online Representation and Software of the Self
Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell

“I’m a Lot More Interesting than a Friendster Profile”: Identity Presentation, Authenticity and Power in Social Networking Services
Alice Marwick

Specifically, the memo highlights the role of user innovation in continually shaping the nature of the web and its importance to society. According to Horrigan, as late as the 1990’s, the internet was primarily conceived of as a vehicle for one-to-many communication, similar to traditional media systems like television. This shifted dramatically during the 90’s as many users began to actively converse with one another in dial-up online communities. The phenomenon of many-to-many communication was taken to the next level with the emergence of blogs around 2004; millions of users were suddenly broadcasting their own perspectives across the web. Horrigan suggests that the latest evolution of the trend is the mass collaboration enabled by broadband and mobile internet access.

Horrigan argues that the throughout its history, the web has come to be defined by “user co-creation“. In his words, “turning users loose to find ways to use communications capacity is the animating principle for innovation in the digital society“. Coming from the user-centered design tradition, this principle is not new to me. However, I find it interesting to imagine how this consideration might influence the formation of technology policy. In my discipline, we believe strongly in giving users a central role in the design of products and systems through methods such as ethnography, participatory design, and usability evaluation. But of course, every design is constrained and influenced by the organizational, political and economic systems that it inhabits. What would it mean then to apply a user-centered philosophy to the formation of these meta-structures?

Horrigan advocates two possible implications for communications policy in the U.S. First, he suggests that the diversity of mobile internet users is a potentially huge source for creative adaptation. According to results from PEW Internet surveys, “users would appreciate policies for wireless devices and networks that keep the gadgets and their connections open to outside innovation.” Google’s Android is one example of an industry-created platform that provides access to outside developers. Going beyond such voluntary programs, Horrigan suggests that policymakers should to take action to “make sure openness is one of the rules of the wireless road.” While I am unsure how open development models could be mandated by the government, I agree that it would be a great thing for users.

Second, Horrigan addresses possible policy solutions for connecting Americans who currently are without access to the internet. Discussion about digital divide has traditionally focused on issues of physical access or education. I find it insightful that Horrigan also implicates poor usability of technology as a barrier to adoption. Despite growing understanding of user-centered approaches in the IT industry, Horrigan correctly reminds us that there is significant room for improvement: “the fact remains that the nature of modern gadgetry is daunting to many people, especially older ones.” How can the government improve this situation? A good starting point would be to focus on improving the usability of government e-services. Personally, I have often been dismayed at some of the extremely unnavigable and poorly designed government websites that exist. Public services, more than anything else, need to be as user-friendly and accessible as possible. Horrigan recommends that the new administration “consider guidelines for contractors serving less tech-oriented population segments,” and thus “play a catalytic role in nudging industry to improve usability and relevance through procurement.”

Consider a more direct approach to influencing the private sector: the government might try to legislate usability requirements for technology products similar to handicap accessibility laws for buildings. That is perhaps too restrictive of a measure to gain much support, but its interesting to consider the potential benefits and damages. In general, I think its a positive thing when user-centered values and approaches transcend the context of interface design to influence larger societal discussions about improving public services and providing equal access for all citizens.

References
Obama’s Online Opportunities: What Our Research Suggests about where President-elect Obama’s Technology Policy May Lead
By John B. Horrigan, Associate Director for Research, Pew Internet & American Life Project

SNS’s are built around the idea of connecting and communicating with “friends”. Some critics, such as Christine Rosen, have argued SNS’s “dilute and debase” the term friendship, because they encourage users to add people to their friends list who are really only casual acquaintances. Ellison et al point out that the ability to maintain connection with acquaintances is fact one of the biggest benefits of using SNS. These acquaintances, also called weak ties, are the former friends, friends-of-friends, and other random people that one meets socially and would generally lose contact with. SNS’s make it easier to keep track of these individuals, since adding someone on Facebook is much easier (i.e. less socially awkward) than approaching them in person and requesting their contact information. In the authors words, SNS’s “lower the barriers to social interaction and thus enable connections between individuals that might not otherwise take place… With minimal effort and the thinnest of information, a profile can be located and a connection created.”

These connections may never develop into close friendships, but that does not mean they are not beneficial. On the contrary, sociologists have found that valuable information, such as a new job opportunity, is more likely to come from a distant acquaintance than a close friend. Maintaining a wide network of diverse acquaintances is thus a key to increased social capital; Robert Putnam calls it “bridging social capital” and Mark Granovetter calls it “the strength of weak ties”. Ellison et al.’s survey of college students found that using Facebook did in fact “allow individuals to manage a wider network of weak ties and thus increase bridging social capital.” In addition to providing an easy way to communicate with weak ties, Ellison et al. points out that Facebook’s news feeds feature helps keeps users peripherally aware of their acquaintances activities: “Through status updates and feeds, SNSs enable individuals to broadcast both major life changes and ephemeral activities to their broad network, allowing others to engage in lightweight social surveillance.” This effortless “social surveillance” can often spark new social opportunities. For example, when one notices that an old friend has suddenly moved to the same town, it can provide an opportunity to reestablish a connection.

These beneficial real-world social interactions that can arise from SNS use are overlooked by Rosen. She views the friends lists on Facebook and MySpace as artificial symbols that are managed for narcissistic purposes. In her words, “The impulse to collect as many friends as possible on a MySpace page is not an expression of the human need for companionship but of… the need for status.” She further argues that most social interactions through SNS are shallow, if not morally corrupt: “the activites that social networking ties promote are precisely the ones weak ties promote, like rumor-mongering, gossip, finding people, and tracking the ever-shifting movements of popular culture and fad.”

While these activities surely take place on SNS’s, I do not believe that Rosen’s comments accurately describe the phenomena of online social networking in general. Her arguments have very little relevance to my personal experience using Facebook. For example, I do not feel a desire to collect as many friends as possible; my motivation for growing my network has nothing to do with status. Each of individuals in my Facebook friends list is someone that I have at met and interacted with face-to-face at least once. I always ignore friend requests from people that I haven’t met personally, because I realize that there is very little chance that we will ever communicate on or offline. Instead, I “friend” individuals with whom I’ve had positive off-line interactions at some point in my life. It is true that most of these people are not close friends. I may even go years without speaking to some. But Facebook makes it easy for me to remember them, and I enjoy receiving updates on their activities. Every once in a while, circumstances or just a whim might prompt me to send a message and get back in touch. The ease of this interaction can lead to all sorts of positive experiences, new information, opportunities and even renewed relationships. In short, my Facebook “friends” may not all be close friends in the traditional sense, but they are important and valuable to me in a very real (as opposed to symbolic) way.

Of course, not all online social networking happens the same way. But I do believe that there is a common dynamic which is responsible for the continued and growing popularity of sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Facebook’s user population has grown exponentially since it launched 2004. They now claim over 175 million active users, and the largest growing demographic is age 30 and above. Clearly SNS’s are not a passing fad. They provide some real and tangible value to their users that can not be explained as simply exploiting the narcissistic tendencies of teenagers. Ellison and her colleagues do a nice job of summarizing some of important values driving the phenomenon.

References
Social Network Sites and Society: Current Trends and Future Possibilities
Nicole B. Ellison, Cliff Lampe, Charles Steinfiel

Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism
Christine Rosen

http://www.infinityart.ro/

I think this site is a great artifact to apply the critical approaches I have been learning in class. Using a phenomenological lens, my first thought is that this is an extreme case of intentionally designing breakdown into an interaction, something that Dave Royer posted about a while back. When navigating most websites, a user is typically engaged in an information seeking activity, clicking on links to reveal text that they are interested in. This activity is part of the horizons most users bring to bear on a website. The expected response when clicking on a link is taken for granted or ready-to-hand. The Infinity Art site affords this activity with typical-looking links, but then suddenly disrupts it, obliterating the screen with unexpected video images. The ‘flow’ of the interaction is interrupted and the website itself, even the user’s computer screen becomes present-to-hand.

Why would the site’s designers do this? They are an interactive design agency and presumably the purpose of this site is to express their professional identity. By introducing breakdown and making the site become so radically present-to-hand, the user is caused to reflect on who the creators of the site are and what their intentions are (as I am presently doing). Furthermore, because the disruptive images are so unexpected, the user is likely to interpret that these designers have an inclination for creating novel, unconventional interactive designs. Finally, because the experience is so novel, users are likely to share the link and post and discuss with others, thus generating a lot of publicity.

I am curious to see what other interpretations and critiques others have.

As Gillian Smith points out (in her forward to Designing Interactions), Interaction Design has drawn heavily on the ‘existing expressive languages’ of non-digital mediums. She breaks these traditional languages down into 4 ‘dimensions’: 1 – words and literature, 2 – painting, graphic design, iconography, 3 – product design, 4 – film and TV.

I agree that much of interactive design to this point, even the really good stuff, has been interesting mash-ups of these various traditions. True, many new activities and applications for both work and play have been afforded by computers. But if you think about the really compelling elements of your favorite digital products, I find that they mostly come the 2nd or 4th D traditions: either really nice visual communication, or immersive cinematic experiences.

I agree with Smith that we need ‘an independent language of interaction with smart systems and devices, a language true to the medium of computation, networks, and telecommunications’. Of course lots of innovation has occurred to take advantage of the unique opportunities afforded by digital technology, and it continues to rapidly. The internet is one space in which we are seeing some promising activity (and a lot of hype as well) in this direction. The whole ‘web 2.0′ and ‘wikinomics’ phenomenon can be seen as web developers trying to craft a language ‘true to the medium’ of networks, and to utilize the power of vast numbers of people networked together.

While I’m excited by these new innovations in web applications, I agree with Smith that we have more than a little way to go to achieve compelling interactions on par with “the breathtaking innovativeness, the subtlety and intuitive “rightness” of Eisenstein’s language of montage”. I think one of the main challenges to this is something Smith touches on in the beginning of her section on Good Interaction Design. Its also I think related to a concept introduced by Lowgren and Stolterman.

Lowgren and Stolterman present their notion that interaction design works with a ‘material without qualities’. By this they means that digital artifacts can take on so many different forms–and the forms possible are constantly shifting due to technological advances–that is very hard to pin down a set list of qualities to describe the medium, as say a sculptor could describe their stone. They make this point more clear by suggesting that we think of bits as our material. Pondering this for a minute, I begin to realize that are an infinitum of possible physical forms and consequently qualities that bits can take on as they are presented to a user.

This fact, as pointed out by G. Smith, is one of the central challenges for interaction designers. In contrast to physical objects, which offer direct feedback when manipulated, “with computers… the distance between… keystrokes and screen image… and what’s happening inside the computer is usually much less direct. Our physical world and the computer’s virtual world seem miles apart.” In other words, the virtual world, the world made of bits, tends to have a lack of physicality at least in the sense that we are familiar with.

However, all digital artifacts have an aspect that doesn’t seem miles away and of which qualities can be quite easily pinned down: hardware used for display and input. While there are vast possibilities in this area too, for most part digital interaction to date has consisted of some basic elements of monitor, keyboard and mouse. It occurs to me now that there a lot of limitations in this configuration, and that by switching it up we might greatly reduce the percieved ‘distance’ between the physical and virtual world. G. Smith talks about the 4 dimensions of previous traditions that interaction design draws upon. I might argue that the 3-D, that is the language of traditional product design, has been the least utilized. With hardware advances this is changing a lot though, and the result is the introduction some much needed physicality to our overall language of interaction.

For example, camera based and multi-touch user input.(I’m sure you’ve all seen many example videos. I believe this one comes out of IU.)

Lev Manovich takes an approach of digital materialism, focusing heavily on the physical conguration of user and hardware. When he was writing the dominant form was still monitor, mouse, keyboard. If we apply his analysis to these newer forms of interface hardware, how does our conception of the medium change?