There is a growing trend throughout the web community to embrace an understanding of behavioral science, and to apply its tennets to our designs. This progress helps us walk the delicate balance between providing an emotional and pleasurable experience for our users and communicating content and information through clear, intuitive patterns.
When the web was first developed, it functioned as a large database, a means of transmitting information from one server to another. Its design was, inherently, mechanic, and placed little emphases on experience or enjoyment. However, its usefulness as a computing tool was quickly surpassed by its potential to connect. The act of browsing the web grew from a personal, targeted experience (one person looking for specific information) to a multi-user and multi-use phenomena (countless people across the globe exploring a myriad of information and interactions).
Today, the web is a primary means of communication, information-gathering, and enjoyment. Its users have as many interests, limitations, and characteristics as they have faces. I cringe when I hear web design referred to as a facet of “Human-Computer Interaction”, or HCI. Computers are mechanical and thus unable to elicit emotional responses to their users’ needs. If we inject a personal element to our designs, then we can provide an emotionally-driven interaction that is more than just a series of inputs and outputs.
When designing for humans, we recognize the innate differences that each person embodies while accounting for the absolute similarities that all humans share: a sensitivity to group dynamics, emotional stimulation, positive feedback, and familiarity.
The Clique Mentality
Try as we may to distinguish ourselves as unique, the scientific consensus routinely points to our willingness as humans to adopt a “herding mentality,” wherein our decisions are weighted by what our peers are doing. Indeed, as Nir Eyal aptly points out in UX Mag, the need to feel social connectedness informs our values and drives much of how we spend our time. Scientists have found that there is a distinguishable range in a social movement at which this instinct kicks in, outside of which our decision to adopt a product (or opinion, or trend…) is left more to personal instinct than group persuasion. Malcolm Gladwell famously refers to this as the tipping point.
Knowing that this social phenomena exists leads us to dissect how popular sites use it effectively, and gives us direction to apply the successful attributes to our own projects. Facebook and Twitter are obvious examples. Their users interact with the content based on a “my friends like this, so I should too” mentality. This social validation creates a sense of trust. Trust is also achieved when content is posted by a trend setter—a leader in an individual’s network. Either way, the individual endorsement adds value to the content, and that value increases engagement, bringing return to the site owner.
There is no algorithm to when something tips, so agile designers have to build products that provide adequate incentive for the trend setters to participate while keeping all users engaged. There are a number of strong examples of this across the web:
Dribbble lists shots by popularity, and a popular shot can propel a user’s status skyward. Members of the community have an incentive to post high-quality content, be active in the community in order to gain followers, and post often to increase their chances of reaching the popular page.
Yelp relies on social validation as its core value. If someone you are connected to recommends a restaurant, that recommendation holds far more weight than a static review, and thus makes you more likely to try it out. Then, there is less social risk to posting about the restaurant after your visit since someone you know has already created a review, making you more likely to return and interact with the site again.
Alternatively, social media buttons may act as a negative social indicator. As noted by Oliver Reichenstein of Information Architects, a low “tweet”, “follow”, or “like” count can communicate that your content is not worthy of your reader’s trust or time. A high count may be seen as a personal advertisement, which can be just as much of a turnoff. Medium’s approach to the “tweet if you like it” button walks a perfect balance between class and effectiveness.
That button that says ‘2 retweets’ will be read as: ‘This is not so great, but please read it anyway? Please?’