Designing for the Social Web (my book)

One of the first books focused on designing social web sites and applications.

I wrote a book!

Has it really been nine months?

Last August, when I decided to go out on my own and start Bokardo Design, I also began writing a book on a new aspect of design that I called “social design”. Social design was the term I used when thinking about and designing for the social interactions between people using software. It was clear to me that web sites and applications were “going social”, meaning that they were realizing that improving the interactions between their audience was key to their ongoing success, not just having conversations with the audience themselves. I decided to write a book about this area, with a focus on tying social psychology research with actual design practice.

Designing for the Social Web

The result is Designing for the Social Web, now available from New Riders, Amazon, and other merchants. The book is 200 pages long, chock-full of screenshots of interfaces, and peppered with social psychology tidbits.

Here’s the chapter outline:

  1. The Rise of the Social Web
  2. A Framework for Social Web Design
  3. Authentic Conversations
  4. Design for Sign-up
  5. Design for Ongoing Participation
  6. Design for Collective Intelligence
  7. Design for Sharing
  8. The Funnel Analysis

In the coming days I’ll be exploring the book in-depth, going through the most important factors in social design, giving away free chapters, and publishing bits that I wrote after the book which could have easily been included in it.

I see this book as just the beginning of the conversation. The fields of design and psychology are so vast, we can’t possibly imagine the infinite ways they’ll inform each other going forward.

In the meantime, enjoy the book!

Praise for the book

"There are very few books out there that address “Web 2.0″ issues from the perspective of coming up with sites that work well. Oh, sure, there are plenty that teach you the mechanics of building an application with HTML and Javascript and CSS. But getting a higher-level view of the process has mainly been something that you learn by doing. Joshua Porter’s new book, DESIGNING FOR THE SOCIAL WEB, fills this gap and is a welcome addition to my bookshelf."

- Mike Gunderloy, Web Worker Daily