Social Interaction Design

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Forms of Talk
It's all talk

Social media are all talk, are "talk systems." They're talk systems because all communication among individuals has structure and organization, and all public talk takes on familiar forms. We can use our understanding of common cultural idioms, genres specific to vertical markets (movies, tv, news, even shopping etc.), as well as the etiquette of social talk (taking turns, showing attention, addressing the personal, leaning on role and position) to better design social media. The benefits can be captured and shared with advertisers and others concerned to know their audience and its tastes.

The front end of a social media site is most effective when it causes users to leave something behind
Call to action

On social media the call to action most simply represented as a link or button is a social call to action and a call to social action. It's author matters, who that author is, as well as in what relationship s/he is to the user and what it's about. Where web 1.0 media might have relied on the call to action as a means of linking documents and files, and appealing to the user's interest in more of what falls along a navigation path, web 2.0 and social media are dynamic. And so are their calls to action. They change, reflect their own use, and in presenting use back to the user and user community, are signs of activity, hints of intention and interest, suggestions of relationship possibilities, and so on. In short, they are appeals to our interest in being socially active and engaged, visible and recognized, acknowledged and accepted.

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