Only when users and designers collaborate within the Web 2.0 environment, can design directions be attained thru consensus

With an increased focus on user participation, a role of a designer in this user-generated medium should by one of “conversational leader” (Leadbeater 20). The user experienced gain in Web 2.0 is based on a system of reciprocity (Leadbeater 20). Designers should actively engage in establishing values and norms, they should continue to forge pathways to there network of peers, and offer these users access to their resources.

A metaphor I like to use in regards of how user participation in Flickr enriches it's service is, Flickr being a blank canvas in which users become the artists in painting a communal experience. Each new contribution of content, becomes a new colour in the awaiting masterpiece, where their user interactions within Flickr, becomes the force behind a new stroke of the brush on the canvas, melding the colours, creating vibrancy and creating depth. And Flickr says, PAINT ON!

A picture tellz a thousand (key)wordz

After doing a case study of Flickr for my thesis, one of the key points regarding connectivity is Flickr’s view of photos as a tool that prompts interactivity. As expressed this post's diagram, photos no longer lie dormant in photo albums, online they become “living entities” that are used as a resource that foster online activities. They add description to Websites, they enrich online libraries, they attract our attention in self-made slideshows, and they even become the instigator of dialogue between users. Photos once relegated for private collections have now been opened up for public consumption, and Flickr has upheld such opportunities by developing places “for the audience to take part in the action” (Shedroff 227), by permitting them to generate metadata to the library of the service.

To visit my user foto-sets on the Flicker Website, plz follow the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasing-sandcastles/sets/

Your Web 2.0 Soup is served!!! Users, hurry up and grab a spoon ;-p

A useful analogy of the social milieu of Flickr could be being similar to a bowl of soup. In this analogy the bowl itself is represented as the Web, where the soup’s broth comprises of the entire Flickr community in which each member adds their own distinct flavour. The user’s contribution can be viewed as the force that moves the spoon, where the spoon itself represents the users ideas and messages. As users participate, the spoon mixes together all the ingredients in the bowl, aggregating together the constituents of the soup, constructing trails that direct back to them whilst overlapping with trails that lead to other users.

In Web 2.0 services, Design is the work of Multiple Authors. .. .

In open-sourced communities as this diagram illustrates, “the order comes from within these communities not from the top” (Leadbeater 5). In such an equal platform, ‘Consumers turn out to be producers as creativity becomes a mass activity not just an elite one.’(Leadbeater 5-6).

In the photo-sharing site Flickr, user participation flows in both directions, where contributions are circulated and re-circulated. In Flickr it its not the photos, but what users do with the photos that puts the mechanism of Design into action. In this user-generated medium, the enrichment of a user experience becomes the primary focus, as our methods of content exposition gives our online activities meaning and purpose.


Summary of findings from Flickr Case Study in Thesis:

Strengths
• There are strong levels of feedback, since all users are in fact contributors.
• Flickr’s open API allows for the development on new features, through the modification of JavaScript.
• Flickr facilitates for creative dialogues between members, where users practices tasks of listening, thinking, and speaking.
• Flickr’s responsive and participatory nature helps to immerse users into their engagement of the service.
• Flickr’s multiple approaches to organization supports greater navigational variations.

Weaknesses
• A folksonomy has a tendency to be ambiguous, as users assign the same tag to different items.
• Users are only granted a finite amount of control of the system, which hinders autonomy and self-expression.
• Users without knowledge of JavaScript can’t make sophisticated modifications.
• Flickr chooses to ignore, rather than devise solutions for members who user Flickr for non-photographic material.

Opportunities
• A folksonomy allow all users to have a “voice” to negotiate the value and meaning of communal content.
• Flickr offers users various choices for archiving, annotating, appropriating and recirculating their generated content.
• Flickr allows users to utilize their content, in and amongst other Web 2.0 services they belong to.
• A designer belonging to Flickr can aim to respond to the challenge of multiple ways that users access information.

To get where ur goin' u gotta kno where u've been. .. .

In an analysis of the current trends found in Web 2.0, it is important to review it’s position in the context of the historical evolution of the Internet. By doing this, it makes the task of understanding how it came into being, the pioneering vision and objectives behind its development and its possible directions in the future much more definite. For this reason a timeline that tracks these events is presented here.

My procedures for doing Qualitative Research on Web 2.0 services

The steps undertaken to establish an online presence included:

• Creating a user account for a Web 2.0 service

• Generating content within its user page

• Enrolling my accounts into Web 2.0 search databases

• Making informative contributions to the service’s public library so that other users can benefit and can deviate to my user page

• Communicating with other users of the service by offering opinions, joining user groups, and participating in communal discussions.

• Becoming community active by establishing trails to resources of information within the service, and offering links to contacts in other Web 2.0 services.

• Promoting a convergent use of Web 2.0 services by interlinking the content amongst my various user accounts.

It was important to establish a sense of connectivity with resources found in various services, as the features of Web 2.0 services promote the circulation and re-circulation of online content. In my qualitative research as a user, it was a goal to create opportunities for open dialogue with other users to as certain emerging user needs, and as a designer, co-develop appropriate design directions through this exchange. In linking my online activities and resources in my various user pages, the probability of this occurring became highly likely.

The main Web 2.0 services I participated in are:
• My Blog (http://www.chasing-sandcastles.blogspot.com/), which is a form of an online diary,

• My Wiki (http://chasing-sandcastles.pbwiki.com/), which are online places where people can easily add and edit content, and are therefore often used for collaborative writing (Kloos 2006 8).

• Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasing-sandcastles/) which is a photo-hosting service which manages content through folksonomy

• Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/chasing_sandcastles), an online bookmarking service which heavily relies on a user self-tagging system.

• DeviantART (http://chasing-sandcastles.deviantart.com/) Which is a image-hosting service where users upload their art, for critiques and opionions from the DeviantART community.