A Wealth of User Experience

Compared to days of yore, where a website was simply a collection of static pages. The information a single page could have was often typed in manually,  As the average computer has improved, so too have the interactive capabilities of the standard website.  Development has reached the point where some web applications and services could easily be mistaken for typical desktop applications. A modern website which provides a high level of interactivity is considered to be utilising a Rich User Interface.

For an application to qualify as "capable of providing a Rich User Experience," two criteria must be fulfilled:

1. It must be interactive.
2. It must use connectivity.

One point of interest is that the criteria do not explicitly mention web browsers or web pages. This is because it's possible to have several Rich Internet Applications within either platforms. Typically provided through any combination of tools and languages including HTML5, Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash.

Not all interactivity is good for a Rich User Experience.

Desirable features for a Rich User Interface can include:

• Focus - Through modal windows, sliding layouts and using tabs, it's possible to hide information or boxes until the user actually requires it. One example would be a log-in box that won't show until the user clicks to log in.

• Context Sensitive Input - The interface should expect the user to utilise key presses and mouse movements (or other inputs) and react accordingly. Some of the more advanced sites that allow replying or commenting automatically bold or italicise text when a user presses the standard hotkeys.

• Dynamic data - The information provided is live, connected to a database. If a user searches through the products of an online store, the store should provide an active list of its products as opposed to a static table of data that was typed in manually.

What's important here is these three features alone fulfil the above criteria. Focus and CSI react to the user's input, and therefore make the application interactive. Whereas dynamic data can only be provided if the application has a connection to a database.

One website that I believe provides a fairly rich user interface would be Blogger itself. Although a blog owner has access to more features and controls, the typical blog page will suffice in satisfying the above criteria:

Blog Features

• The blog owner may edit, remove or otherwise modify their own page. (Interactive)
• Users reading the page may comment or reply to other comments. (Interactive)
•  If replying, the input box shifts underneath the targeted comment. (Focus)
• Displays  how many comments a post has and (if viewing a specific post) the comments themselves (Dynamic Data)
• It displays all the blog's posts in order, from most recent to least recent. (Dynamic Data)

Without becoming an exhaustive list, the standard Blogger post could be considered a Rich User Interface. While the blog itself doesn't provide much context sensitive input, users can still interact by commenting. Likewise, the comments and related blog posts are dynamic in themselves.

References:
Travis Stiles (2005), Rich User Experience, Retrieved 30 March 2012 
Florian Moritz, Rich Internet Applications (RIA):A Convergence of User Interface Paradigms of Web and Desktop, Retrieved 30 March 2012
Cameron Chapman (21 June 2009), 7 Rich & Creative User Interfaces and How to Create Your Own, Retrieved 30 March 2012
Blogger Website

If They Can Build it, They Will Come

Sometimes, a business doesn't have the funds, the skills or the time to develop and maintain their service. Or perhaps, they quite simply want to tap into the skill and abilities of its users. By releasing a free application programming interface (API), there's a chance that the users will begin to build upon it. In other words, it's Harnessing the Collective Intelligence. However, it is aimed towards a select sort of members in the collective: the developers.

Imagine, that crowd of many skills, tastes and perspectives. Imagine they all want to improve the software, and have the capacity to do it. This is the potential of open source and open API. If there are issues with the software, the volunteer developers will find it. If there's a new feature that could be used, it can be developed by the people, for the people. This practice is known as Innovation in Assembly.

However, it isn't as simple as releasing an API (although that can happen). Rather, akin to harness collective intelligence, an API needs to be made attractive to the users. The more an API appeals, the more likely a skilled and insightful developer will utilise it. Several guidelines for Attractive APIs can include:

• The API is easy to access and easier still to use.
• The service is useful and the API can add to or use it in a new way
• The business trusts their customers, and learns from them.
• Documentation is clear, concise and possibly in different languages.
• Having a business plan in place to consider possibilities

Mozilla's Firefox is an interesting case. A simple web-browser that intentionally started off open-source has a variety of languages that enable users to contribute an incredible array of add-ons and tools. What makes it an interesting case is that amidst the add-ons and extensions, the community has contributed APIs for the platform, enabling new platforms within a platform.

On Mozilla's own site, they listed five main objectives:

1. Non-profit - Firefox is and always was free, people could donate if they felt it a worthy cause. This also enabled users quick and easy access to the browser.
2. Track record - It claims to have a long history of making decisions for individuals and the Web as a whole. By making decisions that aim to be a win for everybody, Mozilla has acquired many loyal customers.
3. Empowering - In contrast, they display their trust in the community by enabling the ability to modify and contribute to the software. 
4. Community - A powerful display of a harnessed collective intelligence; the customers are the developers.
5. Challenger spirit - When Firefox first came out, it directly challenged Microsoft's Internet Explorer as a browser. Skip a few years later, and it still remains a strong competitor in the market.

Firefox is a powerful demonstration of Innovation in Assembly, as it relies heavily on its community to add functionality and security to the software. It becomes rather evident that Mozilla's objectives were parallel to typical API guidelines, which is why Firefox has had such success.

References:
Nalla Senthilnathan (2004), How to design good APIs and Why they Matter, retrieved 23 March 2012
Marieke Guy (2009), What Makes a Good API then?, retrieved 23 March 2012
Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox Homepage, viewed 24 March 2012
Mozilla, Firefox Brand Toolkit, retrieved 24 March 2012

Knowledge is Power

While Harness Collective Intelligence focuses on users being the ones who contribute and improve on the Web 2.0 application, there's a side that the business must focus on. A variety of blogs coin it as Data is the Next Intel Inside, but I believe its easier understood through the idiom: knowledge is power.  Having data on a user or a subject enables the ability to act with that data in mind. If you knew your friend liked orange juice, you'll be more likely to look for orange juice should you both stop for a drink. Businesses have discovered this potential in data, resulting in Data Mining.

A business has to get data first. Though there are two general paths one can take: generate the data or acquire the data from an outside source. Generating data can be an expensive task, especially if the business covers an undeveloped topic. Acquiring data typically comes from two different sources: other businesses or the consumers themselves (the collective intelligence).

The hardest part of data collection and processing is knowing how accurate it is. If you were told your friend liked orange juice, but in reality they had allergies, the resulting situation could be catastrophic. Trying prove generated data to be accurate can be one of the factors why generation can be so expensive. On the other hand, this is where Harnessing the Collective Intelligence can really shine. It was established in my previous post that the collective intelligence generally brings more to a business than its own staff. Users implementing and criticising their own data frees the business' hands and allows them to focus on what to do with the data.

But before the business can act, it must address the concern of "who actually owns all the data?" While a business who generated their own data could claim it as all as theirs, one that relied on a collective intelligence may find this to be a stickier problem. Depending on the End User Licence Agreement, a user may take down their information at any time, or it will continue to be stored within the business databases even after deleting their account. There are some instances where the data belongs to nobody in particular, and the business simply organises it for easier use.

Once a business has organised their data, recognised its source and what they can or can't do with it, it must then decide how to utilise the data, whether it be shared to other businesses, analysed to provide better products. What the business decides to do with the data depends on whether it aims to be a supplier, consumer or even a combination of the two.

One such business that works with its data is YouTube. The video streaming website has been around for years because it understands just how vital information can be. To start with, YouTube gathers users' view history, likes, dislikes and favourites. With this data, YouTube can cater to advertisers and users alike. Advertisements can be attributed to the right videos and users receive advertisements and recommended videos more relevant to their own interests. User activity can be an indicator to what's currently popular and how often each channel updates. Furthermore, if a YouTube user is popular and active enough, YouTube can reward the user by offering them a partnership.

But who owns what data? Grant Cowell summarised it up as "the user will always have the ownership of their content, but by signing up and using the website, they grant YouTube to do whatever it wants with the videos." Implicitly, users are putting their trust in YouTube to not do anything nefarious with their videos and data. But YouTube is required by law to monitor the videos it distributes. If a user uploads content that is offensive or infringes copyright, YouTube may remove it in order to protect itself and its users. Being granted the freedom to do what they want implies to users that YouTube expects them to obey the rules. This circle of trust between YouTube and its users allows the site to prosper whilst dealing with the technicalities of data ownership.

 References:

Albion Research Ltd. (2012), Why should I be considering Data Mining?, Retrieved March 17, 2012

YouTube (2012), Advertising with YouTube, Retrieved March 17, 2012

Grant Cowell (2011), Who owns your YouTube video? You, Youtube, or Someone Else Entirely? Retrieved March 17, 2012

Unpaid Labour

Also known as "Crowd Sourcing," "Asking the Audience," or most commonly "Harness Collective Intelligence." This is a Web 2.0 pattern that can be utilised by practically anything which allows user interaction. 

But what precisely is it? Well a collective Intelligence is just what it sounds like: an accumulated amount of intelligent beings. The more beings there are, the higher chances there's a wider range of skills and perspectives mixed within the community. This wider range of abilities enables the community to contribute with skills the business may not even expect! Because of these combined perks, the collective group can quickly and easily correct and confirm each others' calculations and motivations.

Businesses often have a main goal and work together in that regard,
but individuals in a community often have their own goals.

So how does one "harness" that? Sometimes it's not enough to simply allow the users to interact with the software. Attractive motivations for a user can include being able to leave their mark, to influence other users or even simply making the service more convenient for themselves. Their actions can directly or indirectly assist the business. Direct actions can be from contributing meaningful reviews and content whilst indirect assistance comes from browsing and consuming products.

The question then is: What interactions should be enabled to the users? A tried and true method as Glenn points out from Joshua Porta's work, would be to narrow them down to three steps:

1. Initial Action - Enable users to submit reviews or their own content.
2. Display - Present the content to other users, especially the recommended content.
3. Feedback - Enable users to interact with the content.

To explain how this works, I've decided to examine how one website fulfills this criteria.

Whirled, a flash-based virtual environment, is about creativity. While Three Rings created a large amount of the initial content, their focus was to allow users upload their own. This lead to users creating their own homes, characters to represent themselves and even more games to play. While most of the content is through Macromedia Flash, users may still upload images and audio. Because there was little restriction on what was allowed, the amount of user-generated content is staggering.

Just one of the many popular avatars on Whirled

Users can choose to "sell" their content, allowing others to purchase copies using the site's own currency: "Coins" (rewarded for playing games and interacting with others) and "Golden Bars" (earned only through purchases or creating highly regarded games for the community). With each product in the store, users can not only try the item out, but also rate, tag, comment, favourite and even share it with friends. The collective community community drives everything on the website, encouraging and rewarding new and interesting content. The community even helps maintain Whirled's own wiki, which promotes tutorials on creation as well as information on current games.

Checking back, did Whirled complete these three criteria?

1. Initial Action - Users can upload a wide variety of content.
   
2. Display - Users can use their items in public, and choose to host their items in the virtual store.
   
3. Feedback - Users have a variety of actions (besides purchasing) to items in the store.

The sad truth of HCI is that it essentially follows Metcalfe's Law (which can be crudely summed up as: The value of the service is proportional to the number of people who are using it). If Whirled's community dwindles, top contributors grow idle or even leave, the appeal of the whole website seems to follow suit. This in turn could cause even more members of the community to leave. In a nightmare scenario, this would continue to until there wasn't a community anymore. 

References:
Glenn (2009) Defining Requirements for Social Web Applications. Retrieved March 9, 2012
Three Rings, Guide for Whirled Parents, Retrieved March 10, 2012
Three Rings, Whirled Website

Hello World 2.0

G'day mates, I'm Court, a simple Aussie who likes programming, playing games, and reading webcomics. I aim to create things for entertainment, whether it's through programming, art or music.

My studies focus on IT, and while I prefer programming, social networking systems like Web 2.0 are a fundamental aspect of IT too. So throughout this next semester I'll be investigating and reporting on various aspects of Web 2.0 like how it was initially, how it has progressed, who benefits the most from it and so forth.

So, let's see where this goes.