Designing Social Interfaces

Principles, Patterns, and Practices for Improving the User Experience

Designers, developers, and entrepreneurs today must grapple with creating social interfaces to foster user interaction and community, but grasping the nuances and the building blocks of the digital social experience is much harder than it appears. Now you have help.

In the second edition of this practical guide, UX design experts Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone share hard-won insights into what works, what doesn’t, and why. With more than 100 patterns, design principles, and best practices, you’ll learn how to balance opposing forces and grow healthy online communities by co-creating the experience with your users.

• Understand the overarching principles before applying tactical design patterns
• Cultivate healthy participation and rein in misbehaving users
• Learn patterns for adding social components to an existing site
• Encourage users to interact with one another, whether it’s one-to-one or many-to-many
• Use a rating system to build a social experience around products or services
• Orchestrate collaborative groups and discover the real power of social networks
• Explore numerous examples of each pattern, with an emphasis on mobile apps
• Learn how to apply social design patterns to enterprise environments