Joshua Porter

Designing Social Web Applications

No matter what type of web site or application you’re building, social interaction among the people who use it will be key to its success. They will talk about it, invite their friends, complain, sing its high praises, and dissect it in countless ways. With the right design strategy you can use this social interaction to get people signing up, coming back regularly, and bringing others into the fold. With tons of examples from real-world interfaces and a touch of the underlying social psychology theory, Joshua Porter shows you how to design your next great social web application. Inside, you’ll discover: • The real reasons why people participate online and the psychology behind them • The Usage Lifecycle—or how people use your web application over time • How to get people past that trickiest of hurdles: sign-up • What to do when you’ve launched a web application and nobody is using it • How to analyze the effectiveness of your application screens and flows • How to grow your social web application from zero users to 1000—and beyond Designing for the social web is about much more than adding features. It’s about embracing the social interaction of the people who make you successful—and then designing smartly to encourage it.

Designing for the Social Web

David Rivers, a cynical and apathetic substitute teacher in southeast Georgia has a problem. His idea of reality seems slightly different than those around him; he also suspects that he may be the only one being victimized by visits from a very unwelcome creature. As his idea of the world around him comes more into focus, so does the darkness that shrouds his life. The epiphany that he hopes will answer all his questions about life and love continues to dangle just out of reach, but not for long. The Spinal Cord Perception, the debut novel from Joshua S. Porter, is an unpredictable situation of being pulled involuntarily between the ugliness and beauty of the human experience. A bleak deadpan narrative filled with horrific depravity and deeply moving moments of love and self realization, the story gives and takes away with no warning, leaving the reader to question the paradox of the agony and ecstasy of everyday life.

Joshua Porter

About

Books

Join the club