Must Design

When In Doubt Ask
Alejandro Aravena makes it clear participation isn't easy, but the advantages of including those you server IN the decision process far outweigh the pain. Aravena is asking about housing and public space.

Internet marketers and ecommerce teams need to be asking about changes to their "public space" - their websites. The synthesis between designers and community discussed in this TED talk become a model for web design too with lessons like:

* Don't try to defeat natural forces (Google) incorporate them.

* Build flexible frameworks customers can modify.

* Individual expression happens.

That last bullet my represent the hardest transition for most web designers. We are so used to drawing boxes within boxes we forget those boxes are meant to serve PEOPLE. Hard to forget when those people are included, consulted and actually listened to all along.

Look at what has already happened. We created a web o one way communication that was modified, cloned and spun back to us by the social web as two way community. Why so much resistance to two way community?

Lack of perceived control may be the culprit. Learning to love the friction of Aravena's "synthesis" requires placing ego firmly in back pocket and listening. Who wants to do that?

The future of web design TURNS on our ability to adapt many of the architectural principles Aravena discusses so articulately in this excellent TED Talk. He may be discussing buildings in Chile, but he could be discusses our client http://www.Moon-Audio.com.

The future is about a building a DIFFERENT kind of framework one that encourages a growing number of Ambassadors willing to sacrifice to stamp their impression on YOUR web design.

Making Demands Again & Designing Design In
At our Startup Factory funded startup Curagami we've been asking questions about how online communities are built and sustained. We are beginning to connect some important ideas from great thinkers:

Dan Ariely TED Talk on Meaning, Work and Motivation
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_what_makes_us_feel_good_about_our_work

Trendwatching Report on "Demanding Brands"
http://trendwatching.com/trends/demandingbrands/

Daniel Pink's book Drive: Surprising Truth Behind What Motivates Us
http://www.danpink.com/books/drive

Content Marketing Triptych
http://sco.lt/4iT0xl

Web Design & "Work"
Yes, we now realize, you can make your website too easy. You can also make it too hard. Perceptions of "hard" and "easy" are highly relative judgements. An experts will find things easy the novice find very difficult.

SO one of the most important ideas for designing "work" into a website is finding a way to put people of similar levels of understanding in the same bus. We thinking of all visitors in 3 cohorts or tribes:

* Novice or new to whatever the site is sharing.
* Learning and so exposed to and thinking about the subject.

* Expert able to teach the Novice and Learning group.

At first we thought we should cluster members of each of these tribes into their own paths. All novices together, all learners together. After listening to Malcolm Gladwell and refining some of our testing conditions we realize such artificial selection harms rather than helps.

Community Is The Key
The key is creation of online community where peer to peer interaction is possible, supported, encouraged and rewarded. We, as website designers, can't combine our Lego blocks in as many variations as possible given the real creativity and engagement of our customers.

The ONLY thing we can do as web designers is clearly communicate OUR creation story, provide access to our Lego-blocks and CURATE the cool creations of our tribe.

The rub comes in at the "provide access to our Lego-blocks" web design stage. If your blocks encourage creativity and just the right amount of work your customers will want to SHOW YOU their creations as we learned from our friends at Haiku Deck.

Our interaction with Haiku Deck helped us create the Content Marketing Triptych:

* Tool that engages the BUILDER in us.
* Gallery where tool users share their creations (their work).
* Personal Profile (their content on your site).

The missing "magic box" for web designers is knowing WHO to ASK what. These ideas are "live ammunition" for ecommerce merchants. Too much work and you lose money. Too little and you lose the opportunity to win hearts and minds through just the right amount of work on top of the perfect contextually relevant ask.

What IS clear is finding ways to make demands and reward what our customers and advocates do with those demands is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) to winning web design. What are your experiences with building work back into your marketing?

Paola Antonelli, design curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, wants to spread her appreciation of design -- in all shapes and forms -- around the world.

Marty Note
I like SOME of this TED Talk, but LOVE The conversation below it. The next web, and btw MoMA is NOT on my "must steal from" website list, will be about promoting, curating and sharing conversations just like this one.

The real question is when the CONVERSATION is the website what exactly does that look like? How do we design an online "conversation". Digital "listening" is WORK and an evolving science.

SO, interesting talk from a MoMA curator made SPECIAL by the conversation :). M