Three Elements of Social Design

Social Design defines how we understand ourselves and each other and can be broken down into three core elements: Identity, Conversation and Community.

• Community refers to the people we know and trust and who help us make decisions.
• Conversation refers to the various interactions we have with our communities.
• Identity refers to our own sense of self and how we are seen by our communities.

From our experience building Facebook and helping partner companies think about social design, we've put this document together to try to explain how we think about social design and some patterns and best practices we've observed.

Modeling a Social Experience

One way to model a social product is by working from the inside out: allow people to create an identity, let them share it and build a community over time. Facebook began this way. However, if community is already curated, as it is via Facebook Platform, you can instead work from the outside in: utilize the existing community users have built, define new conversations and let them continue to build their identities further. Facebook Platform makes it easy to take the "outside in" approach.

Start by defining the domain or interest that is core to your app or website (music, books, movies, etc.). Then follow the set of key guidelines below and utilize the tools that Facebook Platform provides to help you build a great social experience.