Modern Romantics and the Social Graph

I’ve been letting the Facebook Timeline design settle in now for a while. Today a developer friend was showing me the new Open Graph API (described as Facebook’s core), and it reminded me of some thoughts that have been nagging me about the deeper implications of the Timeline user experience.

The Timeline is a wonderful narrative form through which to share your story. I have been a fan of the Feltron Annual Reports for some time. I admire the way that Nicholas visualizes the data from his life, bringing it to a level of art and storytelling that is really fun to look at and digest. But it is a difficult translation into the interaction design of a social network, and I think the timeline misses some of the key areas wherein social media has the most potential.

What makes up the timeline? Fragments of data – tweets, check-ins, snapshots, other people’s videos, and numbers. And these fragments come together to paint a picture of a user. Certainly, the way this data is collected and contextualized makes it interesting and rich from a storytelling standpoint. But it also turns “sharing” into a form of modern romanticism, so focused on the individual and turning the individual into the “core” of the platform. There is something sad about this – and something strange in the conflation of such romantic expression of one’s life with the promise and reach of social media. It feels like the social graph becomes millions of separate emotional projections competing for validation.

Social media at its best – in fact, the promise of the Internet itself – is not simply a canvas on which to publish our stories. Yes, it can do that. And yes, that is an important human function. But the transformational promise of this medium has always been one of interaction, not one of narrative. Interaction is light, not heavy. Interaction is fluid and dynamic – not linear. Interaction is unmanageable and prone to deviate from any course set for it. Interaction creates complex adaptive systems – not memorial walls.

This is why I have come to feel that platforms like Instagram and Twitter are more aligned with the positive potential of the Web. They encourage and empower the lightweight sharing of fragments – but stay focused on that. The content isn’t meant to be so precious – there is no bid for immortality. They remain focused on the stuff you share, without trying to immortalize the content as a grand gesture of its royal author. They simply provide a means to an end, not the end itself. That happens elsewhere. The form is more in tune with the function.

What do you think?

Views expressed here are my own, not my employer’s or anyone else’s for that matter. All rights reserved, (c) Jason Sack 2012. Reproduce freely with link and attribution.

UX Talk at Hacker Dojo

Have you ever wondered about what lizard brains, magic wands, and emotional information have to do with UX design? If so, you are as weird as me and we should definitely talk. If you haven’t, it’s pretty intriguing stuff. Either way, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the above topics at the Hacker Dojo and would love to see you there.

The Dojo is a pretty amazing place. In their own words: “Hacker Dojo is a community of engineers, artists, scientists, activists, entrepreneurs and other creative people centered around a co-working and social facility in Mountain View, CA.” I spent a little time there last week and met some of the smart folks that help keep the Dojo rolling, and it’s a very groovy space.

I’ll be talking about UX through the lens of lizards, what designers have in common with magicians, the wonders of neuroscience, and why the details matter. If you can make it drop by: Thursday, April 21st at 7pm. Here’s a map to the Dojo.

Merry UXmas

I’ve been wrapping presents for many a year, and this is the first time I recall seeing this little UX enhancement to wrapping paper. Naturally, designers have always focused on creating a seductive experience of the gift recipient. Wrapping paper can turn anything into an object of desire.

But the gift giver also has a critical interaction with the paper. Providing some user cues on the side of the paper that the wrapper needs to interact with is simple and smart. It’s one of those “why didn’t I think of that” ideas. These small innovations always makes me pause and consider what other everyday experiences could be improved by just looking at them from a different angle… Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places, if you look at it right.

Happy Holidays,
Jason