In this review, my intention is to create something new out of what I read and learned from the book, to create a bit of a stir, not to mirror the contents of the author’s work.
This book serves as a reminder to what it means to be human when developing socially interactive web applications. Social Media of the current state of the Web has left many people distracted by the technologies and programmable potential of the Internet instead of remaining attentive to the fact that such communication design, and in particular on the Web, has its roots and ends in human activity, the source of this social emergence.
People, individually and cooperatively, have a dynamic psychology, the study of which reveals the complexity of attentive software programming necessary for a successful design.
Software must support actual social behaviour found in life aside from the Internet. Otherwise we see the rise of web applications developed and used by web application designers and fanatics. In real life, no one uses or needs social software. People need real social interaction which social web applications merely enhance or add to, in potentially amazing ways. Even though Facebook is popular and exciting, there is an inside joke, and understanding, among many of its users, about the rediculousness of it all, the bullshit and nonsense.
Only those whose daily life necessitates or involves the use of the Internet actually experience the power and possibilities of new connectivity with the world and among people. This can be experienced in all sorts of social media.
Describing this to someone is not the experience of it. Most people, even if they own a new laptop and have a connection to the Internet, are incompetent with their human-computer interaction skills to start with, not to mention knowledge of the URL address bar in their browser. Tell someone about the possibilities of the Internet and they might say cool or âgreat idea as if it was something not a part of their lives. That is because it is not.
Developers of the Web on the Internet are challenged and asked to respond in a time-frame never before achieved by any other architectural field since perhaps ancient times: to turn their responsibility to include knowledge of the human condition in the design.’ Without this, design is not possible for the Web. And this must be done now, because it is not being done and the Web has emerged. The Web’s potential is being lost because of the inhuman way it is designed and the inhuman way it is used.
Designing for the Social Web is available from author’s website at: bokardo.com
