Strategy Blog: Viget Labs

M. Jackson Wilkinson - Former Staffer :

Almost any site that has user-generated content has an identity system in place. Choosing that identity system is one of the first decisions made by any product team, though most seem to punt on it and go with the standard option of allowing users to create a username or screen name of sorts. There are other options, though, and this choice can have a pretty substantial impact on not only the functionality of the site, but also on the character of the community that gathers there. Here are five primary options, with some examples of sites in the wild that use them, followed by a few ideas on how to choose.

The Default: Pseudonyms

The vast majority of sites are based on a pseudonymous identity system, where users choose a name by which they'll be known on the site. For example, on most sites where I register, by pseudonym is 'whafro,' and has been for nearly twenty years now. It's not anonymous, per se, because actions are attributable to someone in particular, though their genuine identity may not be known.

Wide Open: Anonymous

Far fewer sites provide an anonymous system, where there isn't any identity attributed to a user, real or fictional. Craigslist's anonymize option is probably the most noteworthy example of this type in the wild, and it's a double-edged sword for them. On one hand, people take advantage of the anonymity to use the service in ways they probably wouldn't otherwise, and it's led to a very healthy site. However, the site can come across as being sketchy, especially when it's used to commit a crime, and that likely keeps away many folks who may otherwise use the site.

Of course, the question of whether or not any user is ever truly anonymous is a different one. Often, these sites maintain logs of IP addresses or other information that could be used to identify a user in the event of criminal activity or something like that.

The Truth: Abstracted Names

Yelp uses what I call an abstracted identity model. Users are generally represented using their first names with a last initial, like 'Jackson W.' This creates the feeling that you're interacting with real people, while still providing a healthy amount of distance between your actual identity. Especially for a site centered on local reviews like Yelp, this model can help establish authenticity while not scaring folks away.

Sure, there probably isn't more than one Jackson W. in Falls Church, Virginia, but it's at least abstracted away a step or two from being my complete identity. In fact, a quick Google search for those terms doesn't really yield much of value.

The Whole Truth: Real Names

While it wasn't initially the case, Facebook now places a lot of emphasis on the use of real names throughout their service, making it a required part of their terms of use. For a while, this wasn't the case, and I had friends with names like "Mother Superior" and "Jaaaaaaaaybo," but they've all been kicked into line by now. Even people who change their names more than once may find their accounts locked -- so if you change your name when you get married, don't divorce ;)

This makes complete sense for a network where the emphasis is on interacting with people you actually know. Unlike many topical social networks, Facebook really doesn't have many great avenues for meeting people you don't know, and everything is tailored to help you find keep up with those you actually have met offline. Offline, people generally interact with each other using their real names, so Facebook tries to mimic this as much as possible.

Nothing But the Truth: Genuine Identities

While Facebook emphasizes the use of real names, they aren't checking IDs or anything during the sign-up process to ensure that the name you've given them is genuinely your name. Yes, that means that you could sign up for an account as M. Jackson Wilkinson and pretend that you're me -- not that there's anything remotely interesting about doing so. Other services are beginning to experiment with taking the next step and actually verifying that the assumed identity is in fact genuine.

Twitter has started verifying accounts for well-known people -- think Shaq and Ashton Kutcher -- through their Twitter Verified program. For accounts that have a history of impersonation, Twitter staff gets in contact with the account holder and verifies that it does indeed represent the person it claims to. It then places a badge in a specific spot on the profile that advertise this verification so others can have confidence that it's a legit source. Now that news agencies are actually using Twitter as a real source for news, this has become increasingly important.

Amazon has a similar process for its members, using it most often in the context of reviews. When a reviewer's name appears alongside a Real Name badge, that verifies that the name given is the same name as on the user's credit card. In this case, it's used to give users confidence in the reviews posted by these members, showing that a real person is standing behind the opinion given, rather than an anonymous coward throwing tomatoes.

Choosing the Right Combination

Of course, your product need not commit to only one of these systems. Slashdot allows for anonymous comments, posted as "Anonymous Coward" and rated down by default, while letting logged-in users post with their pseudonyms without the anonymous penalty. On SpeakerRate, one of our products here at Viget, we use pseudonyms by default, and allow users to validate their accounts against a LinkedIn profile, in which case we use their real names as defined by LinkedIn.

The key to choosing a system is balancing the needs for the contributor's privacy against the skepticism of the consumers. In Yelp's case, a pseudonymous identity system might lead some to think that many reviews of local restaurants are being posted by the restaurant staff itself. That might still be the case, but at least it's discouraged by the emphasis on abstracted real names. In Facebook's case, privacy in terms of identity isn't really necessary for people who are supposed to know each other anyway. For a forum dealing with sensitive topics like disgruntled workers, relationships, or medical issues, anonymity might be crucial to creating a safe haven for people to share their thoughts.

In the end, it's important not to gloss over the identity system. As easy as it is to create a typical signup and login process based on pseudonyms, it could be a major roadblock in the way of building a community that can grow organically. It's one of the first, and most important, elements of your product's user experience.

Brian Talbot - Senior User Experience Designer :

Having the opportunity to refine an idea or concept into a solid and successful product is one of the things I love most about my profession. Here at Viget, we often do just that, on a foundational level, with our start-up clients. Working with the founders of TapMetrics was no exception.

TapMetrics is a tool that consolidates iPhone application sales data, user feedback, software metrics, and other information to allow both business development folks and developers to manage a portfolio of applications. The fellas at TapMetrics, working within a limited timeline and budget, decided to focus our team's efforts on refining their tool's existing information architecture and alpha interface. With that in mind, Kevin and I worked toward an end goal of delivering fairly high fidelity wirefames for some of the tool's core views. The plan was to let TapMetrics' business owners and their team of keen developers take the details from these and run with them, then refine the design after implementation.

Getting Started

Diving into TapMetrics was a fun process. We started with a great brainstorming and research session with Nolan and Chris. Our conversation centered around their hopes, as business owners, for TapMetrics as well as the praise, gripes, and wishes their alpha testers had voiced while using the tool. A good majority of the feedback concerned the following:

• All available information for a particular iPhone application should be centralized and presented in a unified way.
• An application's analytics, messages and alerts should be communicated effectively and appropriately, based on their context.
• The process of managing, importing and exporting an application's information should be straightforward and as streamlined as possible.
• iPhone application information should be leveraged for insight into application management and strategy over time.

From there, we wrapped our heads around all of the data TapMetrics can gather and leverage from the iTunes Store and took a peek into the application's current interface with some general usability heuristics and the above list in mind.

After taking stock of things, we created wireframes that represented an account owner's Dashboard View and an Individual iPhone Application View.

Continue reading "Breaking Down the Process: TapMetrics.com"

M. Jackson Wilkinson - Former Staffer :

Earlier this month, we hosted a workshop here at Viget led by Thomas Vander Wal centered on Social Design in the Enterprise. I think it went great, and thanks to those who attended as well as to Thomas.  A few of us went bowling afterward, and for those who didn't: you missed out.

Thomas led us through a series of challenges and practices that try to help the necessary challenge of pushing the needle in an enterprise environment -- while the consumer web may be satisfied with a 1-9-90 model and widespread participation inequality, the enterprise web requires a much higher level of participation.  Thomas was a tour de force when it came to knowledge-dropping; I don't think I'm unlike other workshop attendees when I say that I spent the weekend sparking new ideas as some of the concepts Thomas talked about sunk in. 

The thing is, while some of these concepts are crucial to enterprise products, most of the concepts are still very relevant to the consumer space as well.  I just want to take a second and look at two things that I found interesting during and after the workshop.

Continue reading "Lessons from Thomas Vander Wal: Reputation and Social Comfort"

M. Jackson Wilkinson - Former Staffer :

From Jeremy Keith's notes on Jared Spool's AEA Boston talk:

You can buy an iPod nano on Apple, Best Buy, etc. for about $149. Amazon sells it for $134. That’s probably cost price. It turns out that Amazon can sell almost everything at cost price and still make a product because of volume. It’s all down to the Negative Operating Cycle. Amazon turns over its inventory every 20 days whereas Best Buy takes 74 days. Standard retail term payments take 45 days. So Best Buy is in debt between day 45 and day 74. Amazon, on the other hand, are sitting on cash between day 20 and day 45. In that time, they can invest that money. That’s where their profit comes from.

Holy smokes. Maybe I'm dense or out of the loop on these things, but while I figured there was a volume advantage to Amazon, I didn't realize that this cycle-based plan was the key to their profits.

Barn and I were talking about this a little over IM today, and this gives a lot of fun fuel with which to speculate about all things Amazon...

Continue reading "Waxing Speculative about Amazon’s Business Model"

M. Jackson Wilkinson - Former Staffer :

Simplicity has been at the core of the web's philosophy of design for the last five years. Whether it's a major part of the visual approach, with large amounts of negative space, simple color palettes, and a focus on strong typography; the interface approach, with fewer things on a given page; or the product approach, with products that do "one thing well"; nearly everyone has carried the banner of simplicity at one point or another.

But while this approach has indeed helped us make products on the web that can appeal to a mass audience, it is starting to show its limitations. After a few months (weeks?) of using a simplicity-centric product like Basecamp, you start to run up against its limitations: it may facilitate the way that the creators work best, but you're not quite like the creators. Maybe you've outgrown the simple feature set and need more for your modestly-growing needs. Maybe you no longer have a few months' worth of content in the system, but now have years of content, and managing it all has become a bear. Simplicity is beginning to fail.

Part of the problem is that simplicity is the solution to a problem poorly-identified. Life is complex, and tools to conquer life's complexity need to instead embrace it, rather than ignore it.

Continue reading "The Shackles of Simplicity"