The Social Machine - 9780262027014

Computers were first conceived as "thinking machines," but in thetwenty-first century they have become social machines. People use computers to meet friends, playgames, and collaborate on projects. Computers offer a setting for interactions, an electronic placeto see and be seen. In this book, Judith Donath explores new ways of thinking about and designingonline spaces for social interaction. The physical world offers an abundance of sensory detail aboutother people and their behavior. Social patterns are harder to perceive online. Interfaces areclunky; we have little sense of other people's character and intentions, where they congregate andwhat they do. Donath argues that for social media to become sociable media, we must designinterfaces to reflect the way we see and respond to the world.

Donath addressesfundamental questions about how we want to live online and offers experimental designs that explorenew ways of interacting and communicating. She considers such topics as how to identify sociallymeaningful data and legibly depict it; developing design goals for visualizing social landscapes,conversations, and networks; the possibility of replacing conventional signals of identity withothers such as knowledge markers and interaction history; the tension between recreating theexperience of face-to-face interaction and creating new types of experiences; the legibility of thepublic--private divide online; and how to bring the online world's open sociability into thephysical world.