Information Architecture for Social Networks

Is really hard, it seems. Not only is a basic site map vast but there is not really a path through the site that suits every user as it kind of depends what you are doing on the site. To solve this I am trying to place different areas of the site into clouds and then linking them in the various possible ways… just seems to bring up another 100 problems though… hmmm fun fun fun.

Design for Emotion and Flow

I was reading ReadWriteWeb this morning and I came across an interesting article about user experience design. It focused on Trevor Van Gorp’s theory of Emotion and Flow. It is based around the concept that we have no much information available at our fingertips that the resource that a website needs to compete for most of all is the users attention. He shows that there is a fineline between boredom and anxiety, and it is here that the user is most productive.

I think this is very important when designing for social applications as there is so much competition and users time and attenion is finite, you have to give them an interface that does maximise their “flow” and thus their productivity on your site to ensure they come back.