Status Messages on Facebook
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Updated at least twice a month; This is a blog on usability in India -of software, web, and, consumer products of India. I will also be blogging my observations on how usability affects marketing, product positioning, corporate branding, customer-service and sales. Write to me: sumank ['at'] gmail [dot] comI spoke at...
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Wednesday, July 30, 2008
3 Comments:
I feel Usability in social networking sites like facebook etc can take a back seat as even though its important to sites with repetitive tasks and complex goals for Social Net sites its the fun of discovery that keeps user engrossed in it.Also users usually find things by interacting with other users, so in a way its better usability as you are pormoting user 2 user interaction. Just my take :D
Hi this post was not about Facebook's usability. I was only fascinated by status messages that two of my friends had. Nothing to do with the site at all. That said, I don't think usability should take a backseat. I mean user-experience of a product is based on the goals of the target users; and their aspirations. So the question of backseat does not arise. For example, I can't have non-standard icons on the site... just for the 'fun of discovery'.
Dont mistake me when I say "usability can take a back seat" I didnt mean to say kick usability off the check list and throw user experience to winds.And definitely 'fun of discovery' doesnt mean throwing user off with crazy icons and puting in unusable navigation.
But having deal with portal users of similar nature i ment to say social interaction sites should take some liberties and make it intersting for user and its should not be like a peeled banana put into user mouth.Example before orkut nobody knew wat scraping(I scrape my knees while skating was more like it :) ) was but now they have learnt abt it and are popularly using it. "Scraps" is wat made orkut so popular. If orkut ment conventional way they would just have communities and mail and not innovate.
So after a pretty long write up i just ment to say keep usability in mind but newness and innovation are call of day not 1-2-3 you are done.
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