Default profile faces matter
May 22nd, 2006
When users subscribe to a social network based service they usually have the ability to customize the profile. Having a profile picture is probably one of the most important things the user can add because not only allows other users to recognize them but also serves as a personality thing.
Being so important is interesting to see how different is the user reaction to different default pictures. On radar an interesting post on the Face-off of Flickr and 43Things faces. Apparently users tend to more easily change a picture they don’t feel confortable with, like the expressionless face at flickr.
I think this is what Scoble calls Anti-marketing design. People feel more confortable using sites that are not perfect. Sites that they feel the sites are were made by humans. And bad design sites success stories are all over the place: ebay, craigslist, myspace.
Personally, I believe in things like flickr and etsy that combine both simplicity in design and usability. Thankfully they’re also success stories or I wouldn’t have and argument to defent against.
