self-made

How to SEO for Interaction Designers: Social Media Strategies: Requires Being Real

Designing for users = = Designing for people!

We design for people. For me making persona documents out of guessing who the “users” are, is not relevant, or shall I say far from the truth.

The truth is that we are designing for REAL people, to make their lives easier, to make the web service as transparent and intuitional as reading is for literate.

In this post I will share my personal strategy learned on the field with you people reading me and am hoping you will mix and remix, and add to it your ideas making it a collective body of work of self made processes.

Step 1: Twitter search, listen, understand

When I am assigned on a project, either it is a free lance gig, or for a company as an employer, after understanding what the project is about, and who the client is; first thing I do is not google the client, or the project, but twitter search it and read the feed of people. What they have to say about the product. This process is like having a giant ear on people’s thoughts about the product. I listen to it throughout the process, like listening to the radio.
Then, since I’m on twitter, I check to see if the client or the product has a presence on twitter. If they do, I keep my eyes on it, and understand how they see their brand, and how they communicate with their audience.

Then I check facebook groups, flickr groups and see if people are aware of this product, and if they are gathering around the product already, or not.

Step 2: Learn from your competitors

Competitors: who are they? Do they have a presence on twitter? on flickr? what’s the coolest feature about them? Where are they ranked on alexa ranking? What does technorati say about them? And what kind of facebook presence to they have? Who is their audience?

Step 3: Find who your allies are, play together

Then what is important is to understand who our allies are. Who could be a potential partner, collaborator, and read about the ever changing, ever evolving social media strategies on the following sites:

http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com

download this and read this IDs: http://www.jingpinweb.com/Arts/Envisioning-Information_ebook_download_56715.html

http://www.seomoz.org/

Stay up to date. Be aware of the change. Adapt. Be creative. A visionary, make decision based on real people, real events, and transparency.

Jeff Jarvis talks about transparency very well in this article.

Step 4: Be creative, adaptable, and simple

Do my best to mix, and have a hybrid open transparent process with lots of drawings, and collaboration on making the interface as intuitional and fun as possible. I also change my process and research and think until the end of the project, even if I need to make and deliver, I still think about it and the process  never ends, as what we build I believe is always beta version.

It’s important to know how to be resourceful.

This is just a draft of ideas, sharing my self made process. Since I am aware of social media, new marketing strategies and the ability to connect and read about what real people talk about and not invent some user persona that are based on presumption, I like to use the tools for research and for knowledge and understanding.

We have tools to listen to the people. As an interaction designer, I use those tools because I work as designing experience for universal (slash commercial) tools and services for real people who need and use them.

Functionality is key. Adaptability is key. Collaboration with tech teams, visual teams is key.

I would love to hear about your process. If you have any more keys to add to this set, please do!

Out here to share, looking for collaboration on making processes transparent, and accessible. Let’s share ideas!