[Reader-list] User interface on LiveJournal

[Kiran Jonnalagadda]

On 01-May-05, at 9:51 PM, Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote:

> 5. User pictures are critical to community on LiveJournal,  
> significantly more so than on other communities that allow  
> identifying icons. Userpics are used to convey not just identity  
> but also emotion.

Like several other forums on the net, LiveJournal allows users to  
upload pictures of themselves. However, LiveJournal is unique in its  
approach to user pictures (userpics), with some interesting  
consequences.

To begin with, while most sites require that the picture be of the  
account owner only, even penalising violations (eg. Orkut),  
LiveJournal places no such restrictions. Most LJers do not use their  
own picture (my observation). LiveJournal allows multiple userpics  
per account -- three for free accounts and fifteen for paid.  
Additional userpics can be purchased for an annual fee.

Userpics can be assigned keywords. When making a post or a comment,  
the user can select from their defined keywords, and the  
corresponding picture is shown. If no keyword is selected, the  
picture marked as default is used. Pictures may be removed or  
replaced with other pictures bearing the same keywords, and all  
corresponding uses of the keyword will show the new picture. Most  
users organise their pictures and keywords to depict emotional  
states. Here is an example of a well-organised collection:

http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=minn


Perhaps because of the large size allowed (100x100 pixels), userpics  
are very significant on LiveJournal. Pictures tend to be unique, well  
differentiated from the others. Consider this collage showing the  
userpics of the friends of a particular user:

http://teemus.mozcal.org/friendsCollage/?username=luv_serendipity  
(thanks, teemus!)


Users come to be identified by their pictures, and in conversations  
involving two or three correspondents, names are entirely ignored.  
However, while LiveJournal ensures that users may only post with  
their own accounts (or accounts they have access to), there is  
nothing stopping one user from using the same picture as another  
user. The uniqueness of a userpic is only guaranteed by common  
courtesy. This can have interesting consequences when users  
intentionally swap pictures. Here is one early experiment with  
participants swapping both pictures and writing styles:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/khorgath/75988.html

Sadly the effect is not visible now because (a) you need prior  
familiarity with the userpics, and (b) all these users deleted their  
adopted pictures when they ran into the picture limit, but didn't  
carry forward the picture keywords. I have attempted to recreate the  
page as it appeared in February 2003, using current pictures where  
the old ones were not available. Please look at both names and  
pictures carefully:

http://home.seacrow.com/~jace/sarai/lj/userpic-swap.html

Here is another experiment in which userpics speak louder than words  
in a conversation (also partially mangled):

http://www.livejournal.com/community/pesit/2016.html?thread=6112#t6112


Online communities looking to understand how they can improve  
participation levels could do well to follow LiveJournal's model of  
userpic as identity. There is a lot more to this than I've covered,  
but due to time constraints, I will break here.


-- 
Kiran Jonnalagadda
http://www.pobox.com/~jace