Jeff Veen on Empowering Users Through Design
How can we design websites that put people in charge?
Jeff Veen asked this question at the beginning of his talk here at the Future of Web Apps Summit. Veen, a usability expert with experience at Wired, Adaptive Path and now at Google's MeasureMap, made several points that all led back to one simple answer: build user trust through design and they will take charge.
Not just interface design or visual design, which everyone can agree or disagree on constantly, but usage design. How people interact with a website will determine its purpose, and if we design interaction mechanisms that trust the user to put into the system, the user takes over.
The best example of this is tagging. While it doesn't work in every context or on every site, tagging gives users the experience of creating the architecture of the site. It makes the site a "you space" that the user is contributing to.
"Tags break down the top-down structure of websites," Veen said. "Tags redefine how we use content on a site, and when you build a site and let users tag their own content or other people's content, you have no idea how they are going to apply those tags. The architecture is built by them, not by you."
And because I'm continuing to track all of the neologisms flying around at the summit, I couldn't let Veen's contribution slide.
Amateurization: architecture of participation. Build a tool that enables people, then let the amateurs construct the content.
Jeff's presentation is available online at veen.com. Beware, it's a massive PDF.
