[Freedombox-discuss] Do we need a UI/UX Expert?

[John Walsh]

Hi Everybody,
There are a lot of smart people within the project and they have years of
experience of using software and social networking sites. The thing that
appealed to me about this project was that a) you get hardware like a
consumer appliance b) you use existing software. I FreedomBox should be
developed to the current best standards, but doing so with a privacy first
context.
 
I would imagine the FBX will had a web front-end and prefer the more
Facebook/Plaxo Corporate Cool UI. I have seen many social networking sites
that have added bling which looks cool initially but becomes jagged quite
quickly, forcing the sites in a never-ending bling upgrade cycle. IMHO, FBX
should keep the UI simple, but offer FBX users the option to upgrade their
web-front end "theme" through CSS etc.
 
Overtime in the social networking space, I have seen the following best
practises;

*	Create an "account" with all your personal identifiable and personal
information.
*	Your account home page contains your activity stream which pulls all
your communications together. IMHO, I think it should be called MyStream -
home page is such an abused label.
*	Create different "profiles" for your different social "circles" to
control the release of personal information and messages (Plaxo, Friendika,
Google+?)
*	Upload your address book to store as "contacts" (Plaxo, Friendika),
which can be invited as "guests" (Tonidoplug, general web) based on
relationships (Plaxo, inventors of portable contacts)
*	At the most have two degrees of separation between you and your
personal information/messages.
	
*	Your "Wall" offers you the options to share your "Status", "Photos",
"Videos".
*	People outside of your Friend of Friend network are *public*
regardless of whether they are on your current network or the public -
Facebook removed this distinction.
*	When you post a message indicate the message's sensitivity/audience
e.g. Private, Public (Tonido), although, personally, I would like to expand
this idea to include Secret, i.e. please do not forward, and Confidential
i.e. forward to one more degree of separation only. There is an option in
Friendika's Wall that a posting will only be seen by the intended recipients
and not their friends too. If all social networking sites did this you
wouldn't need the messaging service simplifying the UX. 
*	All social networking sites allow you create "groups" for people
outside your usual social circle "members". These groups can be private,
like an IRC room, moderated or public.
*	The social networking home page lists all public posts as the
"public stream" (twitter, identi.ca, wordpress.com)
*	Each account holder can "follows" public posts and have "followers"
of their public posts

 
In the bullet points above, the labels "account", "profiles", "contacts",
"guests", "wall", "status" "photos" and "videos", "groups", "members",
"followers" and "follows"  create well known mental models, i.e. everybody
knows what UX sits behind those labels. As long as FBX uses these will known
labels and when we do absolutely need to introduce our own labels use words
with well-known concepts behind them, e.g. secret and confidential ;), then
we should be fine. In the list above, I included Googles "circles" because I
assume that label offers better privacy than Facebooks "lists" and FBX is
privacy first.
 
One of my pet peeves of the software industry is their need to jargonise
everything which twitter seems to have turned into a way of life with its
tweet (websms), RT (forward), follow (subscriptions), followers
(subscribers) :p
 
Writing this has led to ideas about the differences between real world
identities and online identities that FBX needs to consider, but I need to
think through a few more things before I post those ideas.
 
What problems still exist in social networking that we need a UX expert?
What do people think?
 
-- fiftyfour
 
 
 
 
 
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