Now that step 1 funding is a success and a beta is guaranteed, I’d like to throw out a topic…
As I read about Mobilizon to this point, I see the semantics of ‘events’ and ‘groups’ used to suggest the kinds of tool it may turn out to be, but I don’t really see the word ‘communities’ anywhere that better speaks to the people the platform is for. That’s something to consider.
By their nature ‘events’ suggest gatherings of like-minded people. These gatherings might be oriented around a single temporal/spatial point in space, but they are inherently drawing a ‘community’ together by common interest. Likewise, ‘groups’, even more strongly, implies a community of people. Tribes, at the very least.
Though these three notions – events, groups, communities – are undeniably related, they do perhaps imply specific UI orientations and features. A ‘one-size fits all’ approach is probably not ideal.
So I’m curious…
What has the design/UCD folks (Piccard / Dorne) learned from the user needs enquiries that would suggest which direction the beta should go? Can that be summarized for donor/stakeholder interest at this point? A couple paragraphs from them, or from the top, maybe?
In relation, is it feasible to start talking about Mobilizon as being for ‘communities’ instead of just the deliverable semantics of ‘events’ and ‘groups’? This notion is important for the project, I believe, because the context of use in text for ‘events’ and ‘groups’ so far is more in direct comparison with FB features/functionality. But it’s important, indeed strategic, to frame the context of the platform around people more than tools or features, and in this case ‘communities’ is the fitting term, the concept that will click with and appeal to current and future organizers.
And that circles back to the first question again… If you shape the platform in context of being for ‘communities’ of people, and use that wise term in descriptive copy, what does that say about the general UI/functionality direction conceived so far?
The project would benefit from some kind of conceptual alignment there, even if only an initial idea.