In this day and age, we can evidently see that the rapid rise of social media has been pretty overwhelming. In fact, social media is closely a part of the user’s experience. People use various channel to communicate and they won’t stick at only one single channel. Therefore, UX designers have to design all of these channels to be one consistent user experience.
For example, latest Facebook designed with social plugin.
As a Facebook user, you’re able to comment or like post on any Facebook pages. Other than that, Facebook provide home page with full of activity feeds that allow users to see what their friends have been carry out on their websites. Facebook also give some pages suggestions for users to click like, this is based on their daily activities on Facebook. For example, since I am a big fans of Taylor Swift and often type “Taylor Swift” on Facebook search bar. So, Facebook will automatically recommend me to like more fans pages about Taylor Swift or else. Live stream on Facebook lets users share comments and likes in real-time during live event. Live stream could generate bigger audiences to allow your video access to worldwide. The great significant is users can easily sign up to another website by using their Facebook account.
There are some websites designed with “follow us” buttons. But what is the purpose of adding such words in a website? Why should people follow ‘you’?
I’ve read an incident about somebody visited an e-commerce website. The guy intentionally looking for a DSLR camera, however the first sight caught by him was a Facebook button with “follow us on Facebook“. Sometimes website design might be too complicated, so users prefer to go back to something which has the more familiar interface to them and also the brand icon tend to stand out more (in this case is Facebook) since Facebook is more friendly towards users. He said that “Sometimes follow us icons can be a distraction from the user’s primary task.”
All social media buttons do is distract the user from completing your primary call to action.
Due to the distraction “follow us”button, it makes him unable to focus on his initial purpose of buying a camera. This is because people might click the button and access to their Facebook page to look for more information. After that, some “promotion” or “sales” will changed their early thoughts of buying only a camera, they might bought more and more stuffs from the website. “Follow us” button is able to break users concentration from their task and also from satisfying the website’s business purpose of earning money.
Next, why people should follow ‘you’? To answer why, there must be a reason.
Here is a brilliant example, instead of asking people simply “follow them” they added some copy, such as:
“Follow us on Facebook for useful advice on how to get the most from your new camera.”
Thus, with “follow us” and “share” options, people can firmly combine websites with social media. This is the method on how UX designers design all of channels to be one consistent user experience.
References
Boag, P (2012) Social Media Is A Part Of The User Experience. Smashing Magazine. [Online] Available at: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/06/social-media-is-a-part-of-the-user-experience/ [Accessed: 5 December 2016]
Boag, P (2014) Saying no to social media buttons. Boagworld. [Online] Available at: https://boagworld.com/design/social-media-buttons/ [Accessed: 5 December 2016]
Internet Cultures 