Hot answers tagged social-media
16
To me, this is all about alternatives, providing the "value menu" of things most people would want to say in a tiny comment, in one click.
Provided you have made the alternatives, e.g. "click the +1/awesome/like button!" discoverable and easy, I favor a blocking message like:
We prefer that comments be longer than 15 characters so they add ...
15
I'd say this isn't a dark pattern at all. The simplest definition of a Dark Pattern is design meant to trick people. Now, there can be good tricks too, so Dark Patterns are really about deceiving users into doing something that benefits your business goals but not them.
There's no trickery here. They clearly present what they want you to do (Tweet), how to ...
14
The reasons for the popularity of a "thing" is hard to determine and I believe the boffins that are into this sort of thing are still teasing out the details. I think it has less to do with good marketing or usability and more to do with human behaviour; particularly human "herd" behaviour. Some products or services are marketed with energy and money behind ...
13
Breadcrumbs Rock!
And I think you have a personal bias against them rather then making a clear observation about their use.
I notice none of the big players (StackExchange, Facebook, Google, YouTube) use breadcrumbs.
StackExchange uses tags. Those are like breadcrumbs, but it's an associated way rather then structural.
Facebook uses AJAX inplace ...
12
I don't work for Google, so my answer will just be a guess at best.
Let's look at this button in basic terms:
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
It's necessary to make clear that the state is active. Google does this by changing the colour. With this type of button, you would expect that clicking again would ...
11
If I remember correctly the reason is because the share button allows tracking of users since it's served from facebook/twitter/gplus.
So without you clicking on it they already know you are on the site. A two click control gets rid of the tracking while making a inconvenience for the user.
Heres a description of the issue
11
Yes, it's a dark pattern, because the website advertises it as free:
But when you follow the link, then you find out it's not quite free - they want you to advertise their product.
So it's a bait-and-switch. It advertises as if it is freeware, makes you psychologically commit by clicking onto "The Bricks" for more info. And then you find out that it's ...
11
I do not think this is a secret design. Actually, this is a principle that may be inherited from newspapers or magazines:
It would be impossible to read articles if they had not that three or four columns layout, just because your eyes would lose on which line you are reading and which is the next to read. This minimizes eyebal movements while reading.
...
10
If the user "likes" your web site (or even better, one of the articles on your web site), this is a one time action. As an effect, the user will post an "I like this page/article" on their wall and all their friends (or whatever publicity they choose) will see that post in their Facebook timeline. Then it will vanish into eternity... You will have no ...
8
I've experimented on my blog with different varieties. I have yet to see them be used in any significant way. It's a classical 90/9/1 scenario. 1% of people share 90% of the things out there. They drive the overall usage of these kinds of widgets.
Additionally, people often overestimate the value of their own content and think that people will share ...
8
What can work is a small representation of your homepage. G+ uses a combination of a house and a feed:
Another common one is the grid icon, used by Facebook, Yelp and many others:
(of course this only makes sense if you have a grid navigation)
So if your homepage has a distinctive layout, this approach might work.
8
Interesting question, so I've gone digging for some research on this.
This study indicates that more than one sharing button does improve CTR when included in EMail messages (although it is referring to a single specific sharing button (i.e. Twitter) rather than a generic 'Share This' button).
A lot of my initial searching seems to point to this one ...
8
Facebook says the Share Button is deprecated and will not be supported anymore at some point in the future. Reason is that clickthrough rates of the Like Button are better.
We deprecated the Share Button when we launched the Like button, because the Like button improves clickthrough rates by allowing users to connect with one click, and by allowing them ...
8
Well...is it a problem? I forget where I heard this, but there's a story about how everyone assumes those "no dogs" signs are just put up in stores just because they've always been there, it's convention. But really, those signs get put up because someone brought a dog, and it caused problems. To avoid further problems, they banned dogs. Now, maybe they ...
8
Have you considered offering a recommended limit? For instance, if a comment is less than say, 15 characters, upon submitting the comment the user is presented with an alert suggesting that they elaborate on their comment. This will make the user consider the value of their comment, and will hopefully trigger the action of adding more substance.
Always give ...
7
The buttons prompt readers to share, and they make sharing much quicker. If you're already logged into Twitter, you can tweet a post from my blog with just two clicks. If the button wasn't there then you might not even think of tweeting.
Yes, the sharing buttons add a bit of visual noise. The same is true of every feature on a website. You have to decide if ...
7
You Should Have a Public Marketing Site
Typically in a web application the actual "application" part is behind an authentication wall which is not accessible to the public (and not easy to share with regular social networking share-buttons), but there is also, most likely, a public "marketing" side of the web application which is for most intents and ...
7
Though I cant speak from any existing research which FB or Google plus must have done with the logic of not enforcing that users have to upload facial pictures, I believe there are three primary reasons :
Users might not be comfortable with posting their picture for personal or privacy concerns and would prefer to use a neutral picture such as a ...
7
As with any legal contract, both sides, including the user, must agree (“assent”) to the terms and conditions offered with the online service in order to create a legally enforceable “agreement.” In addition, a user can demonstrate agreement in a variety of ways, either by words or by deeds, depending on the circumstances. Online, however, the line ...
6
People use products because they are perceived to have a positive cost-benefit tradeoff in the user experience. Usability –making a product easy to use –lowers the cost but is not itself a UX benefit. User will put up with low usability and other costs like loss of privacy and annoying advertisements if they think the benefits are worth it. Marketing (by ...
6
OK - so I'm going to play a slight joker card here. And you may not realize it but you're giving this answer away in the question.
I'm totally agreeing with @PhilipW and @Baa along the lines of just Upload - but with a simple twist which speaks volumes...
Upload with an ellipis - which tells the user that there is something in the user interface which is ...
6
The most effective placement of social sharing buttons is the place, at which visitors make the decision to share and where it's the most prominent.
Naturally users will decide to share once they're done consuming the content. This means that the social sharing buttons should be located somewhere close to the bottom. However, content footers often contain a ...
6
I've conducted a study about this on a blog. The blog contains short posts and images of various objects.
I've started out by placing the share buttons at the bottom of the blog post. Then I placed the buttons both under the headline and at the bottom of the post. When I did that I've doubled the clicks.
I've also studied another web site where the share ...
6
"Collection" feels very IA'ey, so I wouldn't use that. Try something more human. What do people use to refer to groups of people?
Try seeing if you find anything inspiring in various lists of synonyms. Here are some fun ones:
Party
Team
Gaggle
Flock
Horde
Gang
Some of those may feel like they belong in a videogame, but that's not necessarily exclusive - ...
6
Science: I've read a study last year, saying that the younger generation is unable to differentiate between communication channels: they do remember what did they send to who, but they just can't remember how did they send it.
A quick informal survey on 25-35 year old power users (geeks, hipsters, you know, what friends shall a developer have?) confirmed ...
6
Adding horizontal scrolling to FB is probably not the best idea. But, like most things design, it depends.
In general, horizontal scrolling is:
Bad for Mouse Users
For mouse users, horizontal scrolling can be a jarring & frustrating UX. While nearly all mice have scroll wheels, many don't "lean" left/right, & for the ones that do, being precise ...
6
The problem with customized buttons is that they risk not being recognized if they break key styles and metaphors. In particular, buttons that are not rectangular and do not provide hover states could be perceived as non-interactive.
Otherwise, custom buttons are a good way to give an interface strong branding and a sense of polish. Unstyled (or rather, ...
6
Stylize buttons
Advantages:
Buttons are more consistant with other parts of your design (provided your ui has style)
The overall look and feel is improved (provided your buttons don't look stupid)
Buttons can have more meaning (express different contexts)
Users are very accustomed to styled buttons, as most of the major websites use them : google, ...
6
The best practice here is to display the social media icons in a neutral color, usually grey. This approach is both widely practiced and accepted.
It's worth noting that most of the major social media brands have usage guidelines that explicitly prohibit the above. For example, Facebook's Brand permission center lists the specific brand assets that are ...
5
I've experimented with the AddThis style button, which offers dozens of social service share opportunities, versus narrowing it down to just the 2-3 services that seem conducive to my type of content. The shares were considerably higher - about 65% on some cases - on the larger buttons that clearly showed the social network (in this case, Twitter, Digg and ...
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