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Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

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Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#21

Post by twymer »

aufreak3 wrote: post #15

This talk raises some questions for me. Email doesn't seem to have the kinds of grouping problems discussed in the presentation. So what is it really that isn't in email that can then be solved by something Facebook-like that doesn't do "social networking" like Facebook does it? Is it just that the interface is simpler? email = status update, social group = mailing list, contacts db = friends network what else?

I think email falls into the same category as the real life social graph. You communicate seperately with each group of friends. Other groups don't see your comments. The swimming kids don't see you reply to the friends from the gay bar talking about pictures.

Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#22

Post by spiffworks »

three14 wrote: post #7

Has anyone made an effort yet to do the evident thing, and simply build a social service that lets you have separate groups of friends for all features?

The problem is that nobody wants to present their users with a gigantic list of contacts on first login and ask them to sort and organise them into groups. Instead, everybody just lumps all the contacts together so that the user is least inconvenienced at first, only to later experience problems. Google is in a pretty good position to tackle this, since a fair number of people who already have Google contacts probably also have their contacts sorted into groups for email, and that's a good representation of their real-life social network.

Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#23

Post by miguelpais »

Debbie's problem is exactly what makes me use the Friend Lists feature of Facebook. It might not protect your data that well, but at least it is able to keep things semi-private from the (less tech-savvy) friends of yours from other social circles.

But, of course, Facebook screws you in the end. Even you choose exactly what friends see that photo of yours, and what friends see that wall post, you happen to comment on a friend's photo and then everybody sees it.

And it also does nothing about friends of yours from some circle deliberately accessing the profiles of the people from other circle and seeing everything you didn't want them to see (like tagged photos of yours that they couldn't see on your profile because you forbidden them to).

Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#24

Post by travisp »

miguelpais wrote: post #23

Debbie's problem is exactly what makes me use the Friend Lists feature of Facebook. It might not protect your data that well, but at least it is able to keep things semi-private from the (less tech-savvy) friends of yours from other social circles. But, of course, Facebook screws you in the end. Even you choose exactly what friends see that photo of yours, and what friends see that wall post, you happen to comment on…

It's also surprisingly difficult and annoying to add and switch people around to Friend Lists.

Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#25

Post by ThomPete »

Great presentation but his claims about IM are not solid IMO.

IM is personal messaging i.e. we communicate directly with people in the way that's appropriate. Nothing get's broadcasted out. If anything IM is a perfect list.

I have friends, groups of friends, colleagues, clients etc. on my list but they don't bleed into each other.

Also in most IM you can decide to be invisible for selected people and not for others.

Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#26

Post by ScottWhigham »

dchs wrote: post #14

This is four months old: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1479761

So you are surprised that a title like, "Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem" gets more votes/views than one with this title, "The Real Life Social Network v2"? And four months ago - wasn't that around the time of the Facebook movie w/ a similar title?

Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#27

Post by robryan »

three14 wrote: post #7

Has anyone made an effort yet to do the evident thing, and simply build a social service that lets you have separate groups of friends for all features?

Pretty much what ycombinator funded "the fridge" tries to achieve. The problem is the best tool is probably a hybrid between full segregation and full connectedness. Problem is that in this kind of territory your application becomes harder for the user who has to think more about who is going to see which piece of content.

Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#28

Post by sethg »

csallen wrote: post #6

>> If your privacy practices aren't transparent, then you introduce doubt. Doubt leads to lower usage. So true. Too many apps and services don't understand that as users, when we see "Connect to Facebook/Twitter", our minds are immediately filled with doubt and mistrust. Why? Because we want control over what our friends see about us, and we suspect your app doesn't give a shit and will shamelessly promote itself at…

Some friends of mine had posted, on Facebook, the results of some online autism-spectrum awareness test they had taken—or rather, the test app had posted their results and a link to its own page. So I followed the link, and the first thing I got was a dialog box asking me to give the app permission, not just to post to my wall, but to access my private Facebook information. I declined.

I will assume that my attention to boundary management proves that I am not autistic. The jury is still out on the authors of that app.

Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#29

Post by bad_user »

netcan wrote: post #20
edanm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is this true of most users? Or only people like us? (I'm really asking, I'm not sure; all I know is that I don't like using Facebook Connect.)

I think its most users. Remember also that a lot of facebook users don't use it much and don't understand all of what it does.

http://foursquare.com/

http://www.kingdomsatwar.com/

http://vimeo.com/

http://tripadvisor.com

(just examples, on the top of my head, that are using Facebook Connect).

Re: Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem

#30

Post by sethg »

Could the multiple-kinds-of-contacts issue be handled if social-networking sites explicitly allowed one user to have multiple handles? E.g., a user could be “Bess Smith” to her family members, “B. J. Smith” to her college friends, and “Elizabeth Smith Jones” to her clients, and only her five closest friends would have “friend”-level access to all three identities.
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