Social Media Design 101

Assignment 2: Creating a ’social web’ site with Ning. [30%]

Procedure: Begun in the workshop, and to be continued and completed as your second assignment for this module, you will

1. create a ’social network’ using Ning;
2. include a link to your Ning ’social network’ in the sidebar (e.g. blogroll) of your blog; and
3. document in detail, as an entry (either post or page) in the blog itself, the thinking, planning, and the decisions you made that led to you creating your Ning ’social network’.

For further help, see:

» http://help.ning.com
» http://documentation.ning.com/sections/basics.php
» http://docs.ning.com

What will I use as assessment criteria?

• clear identification of your intended / expected user base–what is the purpose of your site? who will be using it? why will they want to use it? what are they getting from it? what content can they add to your site? how can you turn your site into an ongoing dialog with your members?
• appropriateness of visual style (including use of your own graphics) to the purpose of the site
• richness of functionality (including use of appropriate widgets and gadgets)
• relevance and volume of user-generated content (incl. how many ‘members’ you have)
• and, perhaps most importantly, the extent to which your customisation of the site has specialised it for its intended purpose. And this is both a technical exercise (measured by the amount and intricacy of customisation you have done) and, crucially, a thinking exercise (your conceptualisation of the site and its functionality with respect to what, as a social networking site, it should offer as a desirable application for its intended users).

How will I assign a grade? Much of what I shall be looking for is, by its very nature, impossible to quantify–there is no sensible mapping of what is essentially qualitative into the set of natural numbers. You will therefore receive from me a grade together with individual written feedback that should indicate why I have assigned that grade.

Rationale: [1] you will gain a better understanding, both as end-user but also (and more importantly) as owner, of what ’social computing’ and ’social networking’ are; [2] since Ning allows you to conceptualise, build, and publish your site without need for technical knowledge, you will be able to focus much more clearly on design issue, and specifically design for purpose.