I had an interesting design epiphany last week.
Ever since twitter.com made the avatar prominent, everyone building a stream has realized that attaching a face (or personal representation) to an artifact makes it easier to scan, consume and recall information.
It makes sense.
So, last week, someone on Connect had an issue with some analytics reports another team had built on top of Connect’s data. I couldn’t recall the name of the team or any of the guys who worked on the reports.
However, I could vaguely remember one of their avatars, or more accurately, the colors in it. Well, one color anyway, orange.
That didn’t do me much good, since search is geared toward keywords. I did eventually find what I needed, but the lingering lesson was that I had attached the color metadata to this person and his work.
It would be very useful if photos could include user-specified metadata in or automatically determine color metadata for the Exif metadata; maybe they do already. This would provide another dimension for search.
Or maybe I’m the exception.
What do you think? Do color or avatars help you find artifacts?
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Twitter Comment
Meta, Meta Everywhere [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Only if they rhyme with Orange.
Avatars only help beyond local environments if they are memorable or literally representative (like an actual photo of a face). The more people who use them the less memorable all are. Look at the “following” section of your twitter page, they all just become lost in the crowd (though the syncronicity can be entertaining when two random avatars look meaningful together, like that alert triangle over someone's head shot who looks like she is looking at the person next to her).
Photo avatars do make me feel I know the person. Can't help but think of stalkers, nut cases who take that feeling too far.
i do the same sometimes, attach the avatar to whatever I was looking for. It wasn't so-and-so's twitter feed, it was that dude (or gal) with the strange/funny/colorful/whatever icon. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen.
I have to disagree about Twitter avatars. I use the avatars for scanning all the time, e.g. I recognize Chet's avatar and stop to read his tweets when I'm just scanning for content.
It does help enormously to have a recognizable image attached to your content. When people change avatars, they get lost in the crowd as you say.
I use avatars for scanning too. So, I identify content that interests me with the image. It's also really helpful for meeting IRL. Many people have told me that they only recognized me from my avatar, which is a win in my book.
Do you remember Dan Norris’ old avatar (before the crazy hat)? That one is seared into my brain for whatever reason.
It didn’t help me recognize him IRL though…you better be wearing a hat and look my direction over your shoulder at OOW.
I do fondly remember Dan’s old avatar. Topper’s was memorable too. Now they’re both all straight-laced, etc. I’ll be easy to find bc of my stickered-up laptop.