Dr. Howard's chapter on "belonging" is all about how to get a user of your site to feel that sense of belonging and community that keeps them coming back. People want to feel included and influential and both of these play into this idea of belonging. To create this, the user has to feel like they can identify with the site, the people behind it, and the others using it. They have to feel as though they are part of a community that gets them and they can interact with.
There are several techniques Dr. Howard explores as to how this can be accomplished. One that I found most interesting was that of using mythologies. I think this goes back to how we read earlier in Made to Stick that people relate to stories. People like to feel as though they know about things they are involved in and the people behind them. They want that sense of relationship and being able to identify with them. So the use of mythologies, things like creating an origin story for how the site got started, give the users that feeling of knowing the original purpose for the site and knowing the motivations of the creators. This gives them a personality to identify with and connect to.
It's important for people to feel like they belong because it gives them a reason to return. Creating these back stories and other mythologies that give the site and its creators a persona to identify with helps to accomplish this. People feel connected with them, and thus like they have formed a sort of relationship with the site. This aspect of RIBS is so essential because it gets to the heart of why people get so addicted to certain sites, but forget all about others. It's all about which sites give them a purpose for being there and a community to be a member of.
I like how you connected Dr. Howard’s chapter in Design to that of Made to Stick when elaborating on the underlying power of stories. You said that people relate to stories because they like to feel like they know about things/people. Stories are so powerful because they are multifaceted: they create/foster/strengthen/continue relationships between people, it’s just in our nature. When I read chapter 6 on Belonging, I did not connect the use of mythologies like you did and it widen my perspective so it was nice to read your post. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that in order for people to want to return to a site, they have to feel as though they belong so that they have a reason to return. You listed many things that allows a person to feel as though they belong and are a part of a community. One of the things you mentioned was that people have to feel as though they can identify with the site, the people who run it, and the other people who use it. I think this is one of the major things that helps people feel that sense of belonging. I didn't think about the idea of identifying in my post, but now I see that it is a huge part of belonging.
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