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LenDuongProjectRenaissance

Background

One of the most ambitious projects I have ever undertaken, Project Renaissance is, at first glance, a social networking website for Vietnamese youths around the world. However, it has far more social implications than simply a dating website. Participants of the project are the delegates of the Lên Đường International Vietnamese Youth Network. I became involved when "Ender" Minh Nguyễn brought me on board for the 3rd International Vietnamese Youth Conference in San Diego, CA, under the Information Technology Committee. However, I resigned because of personal issues. I later attended the 4th Conference in Sydney, Australia in December 2005. Since then, a few of the delegates had an idea to have a website to better facilitate communication and involvement among the attendees.

It is important to note the history and objectives of Lên Đường. The first Conference was held in Melbourne, Australia, organized by the local Vietnamese youths there. It is clear that there is a political bias towards the restoration of democratic ideals in Vietnam ruled by the sole Communist Party. Along with that is the recognition of the RVN flag (gold with three red stripes), the flag which is censored by the ruling Communist Party from any form of public display, but one that is favored by the Vietnamese refugee communities overseas. Thus, the conference is biased towards overseas Vietnamese refugees. However, over time, the conference has seen students who are not considered refugees or their descendants, but those who came from Vietnam and are studying abroad. The flag itself raises a question, which Secretary General Thiện-Tâm Trần clarified, that it is his hope that the new generation of Vietnamese can bring forth a new flag, and in my interpretation, one that signals the reunification of the Vietnamese peoples all over the world. It is important to note that the Lên Đường is simply a network, and that its agenda is driven by the attendees, which just so happens to have a lot of activists leading the organization.

That said, Project Renaissance is a step towards Reunification, a rallying point for the descendants of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ. The term "Việt Nam" is really a modern term. The most ancient description is actually "Bách Việt", referring to our origins as 100 children born from the same parents. The importance of this myth is explained in my Xanga, but essentially the Bách Việt ideology is reunifying one hundred different ethnic groups into a new multicultural society. This isn't an ideology shared by all attendees of the Conference because of numerous issues that prevent youths from understanding the deeper meaning of this Vietnamese myth, issues such as identity loss, language barriers, assimilation, lack of access to cultural experts, etc. I am one of the handful of Vietnamese in the world who has this kind of understanding, and it is my reason for participating in this project. Therefore the design considerations you see for Project Renaissance will have Bách Việt ideological influences.

My Role

I have chosen to take the lead on the design of the site, the vagueness of Design being necessary because of the complex factors I must take into consideration, which play out into interaction design, information design, and communication design. That is why I need to keep a journal on this project, so that I can keep track of the those complex factors and the decisions I make.

Preliminary Content and Mockups

The Content committee gave me an initial outline of the kind of content they wanted to see. Basically, their aim was to be a portal, with complexity along the lines of Myspace and Facebook, perhaps even more than that. It is more of a cross between social networking and a youth-driven media outlet, which seems like an appropriate hybridization. My worries are as follows:

• Given the complex and substantial amount of content, we do not want a cluttered interface that makes it harder to find what you want. Simplicity is key, a design reflective in Yahoo!, Google, and Facebook's interface. Myspace's interface is probably the poorest visual design I have ever seen. But its popularity seems to have little to do with visual design. Its ingenuity was in the interaction design: by allowing independent artists a way to promote their music to their fans. Thus, visual design might just be cream, the importance lying more in the interaction and information.
• The problem with Myspace is that I feel like it is mostly a waste of time, i.e. the only thing it is good for is keeping track of your friends in a manner similar to an addressbook, and helps you find other friends as well. Beyond that, I do not use it to find events I want to go, or music I want to listen to. I feel as though Myspace has sold itself out to advertising, and it has no clear vision of what it is supposed to be doing. Facebook is a lot better in its abilities to keep track of your friends, and I like it (much to the chagrin of Facebook's creators after a massive protest against its mini-feed feature). Its photo tagging features is a much used feature among my friends. My Shares has yet to pick up as the Digg.com or Bluedot.us killer, though I don't think they intended it to be. Likewise, My Notes doesn't seem to be a full-fledged blog application it could be. But My Events is nice as an Evite alternative. My Groups has much to be desired in its features and functions.
• Groups in which people do not submit content or encourage other people to participate is a waste of space. I believe that is because groups must be a combination of online and face-to-face interaction, which is why I like Meetup.com. Geography is an important factor and barrier that should be overcome by collectivity, i.e. you create small groups and then unite the numerous small groups into a larger collective.
• Coming from a Knowledge Management background, I don't want content to be ephemeral, but to have actual value in making future decisions. Things like adding favorites bookmarks on your content is one such feature, and is the reason why Facebook's photo system is popular for its social tagging features: so you can find photos of your friends in the future.

Mockup 01

For the first mockup, I considered blue and green as the primary colors because "xanh" has the connotation of youth. Also the world map background had the dynamic ability to center itself to the location of the content, i.e. if you lived in San Jose, the map would have a marking showing where San Jose was. Remember that this is an international site, so geography is a reality. There is also the problem of language barriers. Thus, I intended the interface to be able to display all languages, though the person may choose which languages to limit himself/herself to reading, encouraging bilingual and multilingual speakers. The interface also allows you to read content labels based on the language of your choice, so that you know what the content is, even if its in another language.

Initially I assumed the content was blog entries and articles. But its main criticism was that the site looked too much like a news source, and did not reinforce enough of the social networking aspect, or at least it looked more like an afterthought.

Mockup 02

The site by now has now been designated YouViet as the official name, and I like the name because of its simplicity and almost universality (even though it is English, but it's okay). I changed the primary colors to teal and green and opted for no background, allowing the content itself to decorate the page. However its main criticism is that it was too simple, a bit washed out and unexciting. I will have to defend this design because youths did not join Myspace because it was a beautiful site, and Facebook is far more washed out and unexciting in its color scheme. I maintain that a simple interface is the best interface, because it will be the content that will drive users back to the site. Anything that distracts from the main content only serves an annoyance, though that is purely my own opinion. A suggestion was include a third color, and so I will consider gold as a highlight color.

Applications

Directory

This application will allow you to browse and search for people and groups.

Groups

As I previously mentioned, my idea of groups is based on the collective model: allowing interests to flourish on the local level and then combine the numerous local groups over a wider region. An emphasis on the needs of the group will make this application more successful than any of the other social networking sites, and features must include:

• Events invitation and RSVPs
• Albums for events
• Group URL
• Ability to recognize relationships between groups
• Organize projects and maintain human resources
• Group communication through forums

Wall Posts / Public Comments

Seems like people use this to either share photos/videos or a permanent chat window.