AJ, This to me is all about one of the core areas that defines decisions in interaction design. -- "posture" as Cooper discusses it. I call it focus. How much focus do I want to or need to or can put on a given task? IRC is chat. It's design intention and its formatting and functionality are all designed around synchronous & focused communication. People HAVE designed UIs that allow for more asynchronous uses, but the very foundation of IRC is real-time. Twitter from the ground up is meant as asynchronous status communication. It has been used for real-time (guilty as charged), but limited to short bursts akin to using PTT phones.
There are some key differences in the interface types and interface modes that push towards different types of communication. One of the main things that twitter has that IRC doesn't is an interface to/from SMS. This really changes the ball game. When I direct message someone in Twitter it is highly likely that that message will get to the person whether or not they are monitoring much like an SMS. It is used in most clients differently, after that is a "reply" or "@" message which is also treated differently in most clients. There are a ton of different aspects of the total experience that really are great at highlighting the differences in posture and how they lead to different overall uses of the tool. Heck, there is nothing preventing me from using email the same way as twitter or even IRC, or a BBS, etc. etc. But each is designed with a different fundamental model of focus and thus interaction intention. All of the above and other reasons I don't have time to read off make Twitter a VASTLY different experience. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=29042 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
