One of the intriguing aspects of online communities is the intersection of several disciplines (eg. strategy, technology, marketing, design) and their interplay. And it is the interplay that is the crucial part - online communities are living, breathing things... From our experience, as soon as a prospect or client starts treating an online community as an IT project, we know we have some challenges.

So it was interesting to read Joshua Porters post "The behaviour you're seeing is the behaviour you've designed for". And whilst this is very much the designers view of the world - content doesn't rate - this post makes several important points.

Just as we - as Community Managers - need to listen to what is being said (content) we also need to forensically observe behaviour. This includes what are people not doing - e.g. visiting but not contributing, voting but not commenting. Most importantly, this is a mindset about design and incorporating design into the constant review cycle of managing a community: "how do we approach the conversation (content) and the interaction options (design) this week/month".

This approach elevates (experience) design to its rightful and continuing place in the discussion, puts responsibility squarely back on the design team (where did that agency go?) and demonstrates to the community that listening is happening in all sorts of ways...

And of course, the beauty of a community environment is that you can always ask them: how should we improve our site design?!