The social web: together we can be perfect(ish)

Isaac’s been known to repeat the maxim ‘We demand perfection!’ when collaborating with our CSS Ninja, Sarah, on projects. Now, whilst visual perfection is something we strive for at MxM, we also strive for maximum engagement with our users. So I was interested to see this mini-interview with Clay Shirky who espouses a bit of rough to make sites that require interaction more friendly.

Basically, he’s saying that if something looks too perfect (like a kitchen fit for a magazine shoot), people won’t touch it. This is why the sites we’ve designed recently (and in the past) put people and activity to the fore.

We want people to engage with the social utilities we build, and we’re not afraid to create a few things in the rough and see them evolve over time as users interact. In the social web, it’s unlikely you’ll get things 100% right when you first launch, and that’s what makes it different and exciting for people to engage with. Everyone can come in and spill a bit of jam on the counter.

Together with our users, we can create something that – whilst not perfect – is fun to use, looks good, gets better over time and erm, tastes of strawberries. [Note to self: avoid metaphors in blog posts, they always end messily.]