Tell Me, Please

by Adrian Chan on February 28th, 2009

In client work recently I have come up against the the importance — and difficulty — of satisfying multiple user positions and experiences. Social media work because the author and the reader are satisfied. Sure, social MEdia need to be satisfying to me, but if they are to scale and succeed, the social system needs to reward readers and recipients, too.

This has brought up a few interesting principles of late. I want to share them just because I find them interesting.

The first is that there’s an asymmetry between the interest which motivates the user who "acts" (creates, posts, etc) and the user who responds. Not all systems are built around a coupled statement-response model of communication, of course.

But there’s an intrinsic interest in response for a lot of users and use cases in twitter and other conversational tools. If I ask a question on twitter, I am motivated by my question, which is something I want an answer to now. The person who is asked (who sees) the question has no interest at all. His or her interest can be piqued and aroused — but is not the same as mine.

The act of answering may more likely be the motivation, and not the content of the question. Question and answer systems are difficult because they involve satisfying two users, the asker and the answerer. If these user experiences are satisfied in real-time, then the interaction itself handles the experience. If they are satisfied out of synch, then each user has to produce his/her own interest: one in the act of asking, one in the act of answering.

This asymmetry extends to other aspects of communication in social media. Take, for example the case of sharing.

Because users are different, and have different personalities:

Some who share do so because they want to share with (someone).
Others share because they want to show to (others).
Some share to exchange for (something).

These are different experiences and are met with different technologies or have different technical solutions.

For example, the user who shares with someone probably posts the photo in order to send it along. Sharing is the act; The photo is the symbol. This user wouldn’t post this particular photo if it weren’t for the person or people s/he was thinking of.

But take a person who finds something online, and book marks it because it is interesting, but has no person in mind to share it with. Later, this person decides either that the thing is interesting enough that others would find it interesting, and shares it. Or s/he thinks of a person who might enjoy it also, and shares it. Sharing in this case has come afterwards. It is a second act, it adds value to this person’s user experience, but wasn’t the original motive or interest.

The user in our first case, on the other hand, wanted to communicate from the beginning. Communicating was the primary act, and was the motive and interest.

These are just two simple examples of how the activity involved in sharing stuff online can be broken down into two acts: one of saving the thing; one of sharing the thing. And that these are different, depending on whether they are governed by the act of saving or the act of communicating.

In the first case the action carries the content. Communication leads.in the second the content precedes the act. Communication follows.

These distinctions may seem trivial but they’re not. They have significant implications for: