Quora's Elegant Notification 'Panel'

I have written about the design of promotion and notification units several times - pointing at examples from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Here is an example from Quora... and while it is similar in its boldness, its very different in its style.

Quora notifies users of updates to questions that they are following. The notifications start on your homescreen and sit above the feed (somewhat similar to Facebook in that sense... but they are expanded by default). When you visit a particular question page, the notifications all sit above the question / answer content.

As you scroll down the page, the notifications sit persistently atop the page. It is a design style that is being used more and more... though in different shapes, sizes and formats.

We are seeing more and more persistent units at a page's header and footer. And as pages become busier and busier, persistent 'bars' (for lack of a better term) are good ways of capturing attention. Quora is interesting though because their pages are so clean and simple. But Quora's notification unit is clean and simple itself - and itself an elegant navigational panel and personal newsfeed:

Here are the notifications on the question page:

And here are the notifications sitting atop teh page as you scroll down:

Designing Your Facebook Page's Profile Image

Facebook's news feed is crowded (and more crowded with each passing day). Consequently, visuals play a big role is drawing attention and driving clicks / conversions. This includes feed pictures, profile pictures, thumbnails, etc. With Facebook's new Page Browser, you can quickly get a sense for the imagery that brands and page-owners use.

Some are simple and represent the brand directly (see FootJoy). Some take advantage of the alloted vertical space and are colorful (see HBO's Eastbound and Down)

Obviously the best advice is to test and measure which imagery works best for your brand and your audience.

While their thumbnail is quite different, Facebook's Data page is gorgeous. By cleverly blending the logo into the Facebook page, it looks very natural and clean. While page-owners do not have a ton of room for creativity, this is well done:

Facebook's Page Discovery: Directory & Shared Likes

Yesterday I wrote about the evolving importance of Facebook's "Like Graph". And today related news appeared from Facebook in a blog post named Discover Facebook Pages

In essence, Facebook has rolled out a more substantial way to find Facebook Pages and view shared likes with your Facebook graph... as compared to the more indirect method I wrote about yesterday.

The main directory is fun because it is highly visual... and effective for page owners because users can like pages through a mouse-over (potentially a big lever):

"Discover Facebook Pages: See something interesting? Roll over the Page and click Like to receive updates in your News Feed."

The far more interesting part is the sidebar: "Friends Similar to You". It features a simple way to view shared likes with your Facebook friends. As I wrote about yesterday, I believe this is the skeleton of something much larger: social search.

Good start. Interesting to see how Facebook chooses to drive traffic to this.

The Power of Statistics & Dashboards (About.me as an example)

In May of 2008 I wrote that statistics - specifically around referrals and influencers - could be a sizeable business model for Twitter. Last week, About.me launched publicly. It's a gorgeous site creator that allows very simple page creation and automatically pulls in content from your social presences: ie Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Wordpress, etc. You can view mine at About.me/rspoon

Much can be written about this - SEO, self-branding, social aggregators, etc. But I want to return to the premise that my 2008 article about Twitter and statistics... because one of the great features of About.me is their "dashboard":

First, the dashboard gets users to return to the site... making it "sticky" in an environment that might not otherwise encourage daily usage (after all, the service automatically updates all of your presences!).

Second, it is addictive... in the same way that game mechanics make other sites sticky and why Twitter's follow count can be credited with some of their early growth.

Third, it encourages promotion. Want more views and visitors? Promote your About.me page via Twitter, Facebook and email (of course About.me makes that easy).

Fourth, it is really useful and interesting... and unique. There are statistics on visits, views, etc - but more interesting, there are stats on the number of status updates pulled in, your total reach, the @replies, etc. Powerful ways to unite the data around "influencers" and your About.me page will emerge over time.

So how can you apply similar mechanics and a "Dashboard" mentality to your experience?

Google Instant Thoughts

After a few days of usage, a handful of thoughts of Google Instant: 1. It's a technical feat: fast, inteliigent, and useful. 2. It's a design feat. Gorgeous, clean, simple and very Google (and Facebook to that extent).

3. It will have a significant impact on SEO and SEM... though I think we are all unclear exactly what it means yet.

My early thought is that it moves power to towards the head rather than the tail. For instance, more value will be placed on head terms and shorter queries - in other words, before the search is refined. For SEM that means that more bidding, traffic and clicks will be driven to those terms... and therefore they will cost more and CPMs will rise.

4. Today it requires you to search from Google.com. For most users, that is fine. But I am not sure that is the way we will behave in the future - and its certainly not I how use Google. My searches all occur in-browser... so Google Instant doesn't apply unless I do a secondary search / refinement.

5. That said, this has significant implications for Google Chrome. Imagine Instant applied to the browser... or to the OS, desktop, etc... Chrome and Chrome OS should utilize Instant across the browser and across other Google properties.

6. I believe this will mark a trend of companies that mimic the UI and design (which I am all for). Over time, this will be a very familiar interface and interaction.

Twitter Takes Over Mobile Site to Promote Twitter for iPad (Love It)

Two weeks ago, Facebook rolled out their new Places product; and, to drive user awareness and adoption, they prominently promoted it within their mobile application and web experience. This week, Twitter rolled out Twitter for iPad. It's an exceptional product and I encourage non-Twitter users to trial it as well... the user experience is that good!

To drive awareness of the new application, Twitter is delivering an interstitial to users browsing via an iPad. It's big, highly relevant and promotes the application over the web experience (just compare the size / placement of the 'download button' vs. the mobile.twitter.com link).

It's another great example of driving usage through relevant promotion (relevance defined by placements and user targeting)... and what I refer to as getting product "in the river".

Facebook Places Promotion on Facebook Touch

When Facebook launched Facebook Places, I wrote about how they boldly and centrally promoted their new feature. Here is a similar example from Facebook's mobile web experience - Facebook Touch. Like the YouTube HTML5 promotion, there is a spotlight box that sits between Facebook's header and the newsfeed input box... which means there is no way you can miss the unit.

In addition to the messaging, notice the Places button that offsets my profile icon and sits to the right of the input box. It is less obvious but, again, very prime real estate.

You can tell how much of a priority Places is to Facebook, a company that takes web design and each pixel very seriously:

Facebook Now Highlighting Tagged User Names

It is always difficult to tell when Facebook is testing new features / formats because they roll out so many variations to differrent user segments. So with that caveat, below appears to be a new format for tagged users. When you tag a user on Facebook, the name now appears highlighted fully in a Facebook-blue shade. The result is a clearer indication that the name is an 'entity'- it is hyperlinked, non-editable, etc. More interestingly, it occurs at a time when Facebook has rolled out Places - where user tagging is a key feature (and a differentiated one too). It is my hope that this is the beginning of a more robust tagging experience.

Facebook Places Gorgeous Mobile Promotion

A few weeks ago, I wrote about YouTube's terrific mobile promotion of their new html5 experience. Here is an even better, more eye-catching promotion by Facebook for the new Facebook Places product. As background, to access Places, users had to download the new iPhone app. Upon opening of the new app, the screen animates to highlight the new Places tab and experience. It is great looking but entirely distracting... Which is clearly the intention. I have written before about making sure that new products and enhancements somehow get "into the river" - my reference to ensuring that features are not relegated to the edge of the experience... After all, they then are not core to the experience, rarely used and therefore not impactful. This one way for Facebook to get Places into the river - and considering it's currently a mobile-only product, it is as effective as can be: