During a recent usability study, I wanted to share some thoughts with our client about how to encourage people to engage with their site a little more deeply, as this is currently a key objective for them. I suggested that they consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a framework for developing online engagement.

Originally this was developed as a way of understanding how people's needs develop and their goals change as those needs were met, but appears to be equally useful and relevant online.

In this context, we could say that:

Functional needs typically drive the first interaction with a site - “I need to know...”.

Once functional needs have been addressed, safety needs come to the fore. In this context, this includes privacy issues, as these will prevent further progression.

From safety needs, we move on to belonging, or a sense of inclusion in a desirable group as a key motivator. In this framework, this is the first real motivator for social networking.

Next up, esteem suggests the need for hierarchy and recognition within online communities (and there are loads of design solutions out there to support this).

And finally, self-actualisation. All the others are fairly well supported in existing sites, except for this. To me, this is where it gets interesting, generating ideas about how this could be used to deliver the highest levels of engagement.

Maslow talked about self-actualisation as relating to “a desire to realize all of their potential for being an effective, creative, mature human being”. In the context of online communities, we were discussing opportunities to support people developing their creative and critical skills - becoming a well-developed or respected photographer through participating in a photo-sharing community like Flickr; becoming a trusted reviewer on websites like TripAdvisor (for hotels and tourist destinations) or RottenTomatoes (for films)?

Another element of self-actualisation is problem solving, this correlates quite nicely with the old idea of promoting people to moderator status within a community, as self actualising people are supposed to be interested in solving other people's problems.

If Maslow's theory is as applicable as it seems to be, could online communities do more to encourage this sense of personal achievement?