Usability

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• Usability sociability in online communities A
  framework for research practice
• Jenny Preece
• Prof. Chair of Information Systems
• UMBC, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA
• preece_at_umbc.edu
• www.ifsm.umbc.edu/onlinecommunities

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Overview

• Definitions
• Sociability usability
• Research example
• Conclusions future research

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Definitions of online community

• Technologists
• Sociologists and anthropologists
• Business entrepreneurs (e-commerce)
• Any virtual space where people come together to
  get or give information or support, to learn, to
  discuss, to be with others online.
• Online communities support communication between
  patients, professionals, students, citizens and
  nations
• Small or large, local, national, or
  international, virtual or physi-virtual.

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My definition (Preece, 2000)

• People make the community. Group dynamics, needs
  and roles shape the community.
• Purposes people come together for a purpose(s).
• Policies behavior is governed by group norms,
  rules and sometimes formal policies.
• Software supports and influences community
  activity.

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Some numbers (10/2001)

• 52m US Internet users, 55 check health sites
• 230m unique MSN users per month
• 29m AOL users, 1 million more per month
• Over 104m ICQ users, millions now texting
• Over 91,500 UseNet groups
• 50,000 IBM employees, World Jam, June 01
• 100 -150 immersive CAVE environments

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Overview

• Definitions
• Sociability usability
• Research example
• Conclusions future research

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Sociability and Usability

• Sociability is concerned with social interaction.
  Communities with good sociability have
  unambiguous, supportive, social structures.
• Usability is concerned with human-computer
  interaction. Systems with good usability are
  consistent, controllable and predictable.

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Sociability

• Purpose provide a clear statement of purpose,
  brand name, symbol
• People support different types of participants
  and participation, show presence when
  appropriate, keep participants interested
• Policies guide behavior by providing and
  encouraging conventions, moderate with policies,
  support trust and security

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Usability

• Dialog social interaction support provide
  support for communication icons, reduce typing,
  visualizations
• Information design distinguish between new
  old content, different types of content
• Navigation support moving around the community,
  searching messages, moving between modules
• Access consider speed of connection, not
  everyone has most recent technology

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Pillars of participatory community-centered
development

• Usability
• Dialog social interaction support
• Information design
• Navigation
• Access

• Sociability
• Purpose
• People
• Policies

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Support sociability, design usability

• Should there be a registration policy?- Who can
  join? - What effect will it have on membership?
  
• Write message, design form- Interaction design-
  Layout - e.g. position size of boxes etc.-
  Relationship with database

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Community Framework
Sociability i.e. On-topic Reciprocity
Empathy Trust Identifiability
Com. ground Privacy
Functionsi.e. roles Identity
1
Communityi.e. Type Stage Size
Culture
Scaffold S
People
Communication(Bales, 1950s) i.e. Informational
Social-emotional
2
Purposei.e. goals
Communityi.e. Type of activity How much
By whom Satisfaction
Infrastructure i.e. Media type Network
capacity Computer capacity
3
Operations (McGrath, 1984) i.e. Generate
Choose Negotiate Execute
Usability Individual
Software i.e. Navigation Community
Information
3
Policies (Lewin, 1930s) i.e. Authoritarian
Democratic Laissez-faire Anarchic
Norms rules Policies
Usability Community i.e. Conviviality
Efficiency Effectiveness
KEY
1-3 scaffolds suggested
Signals terminationMany CSCW issues
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Overview

• Definitions
• Sociability usability
• Research example
• Conclusions future research

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Research Silent participants or lurkers
(Blair Nonnecke, 2000)

• 12 indepth interviews - Reasons for not posting
• Uncomfortable in public
• Learning about the group
• Building identify
• Fear of persistent messages
• Information overload
• Not necessary to post
• Personal characteristics (e.g., shyness)
• Group influences Lurkers often feel part of a
  community

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From a lurker ...

• Maybe it's a sign of my own mild discomfort
  around being a lurker, but I found it reassuring
  to recognize myself and my behavior within the
  continuum you describe, and to see lurking
  treated seriously, with both acceptance and
  respect. As a lurker, I'm used to observing from
  the sidelines and participating vicariously, and
  it's strangely gratifying to read an article that
  speaks directly to that experience. It's almost
  like suddenly feeling part of an (until-now)
  invisible community of lurkers.

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Lurking online data logging

• 12 weeks
• Started with 135 original subscriptions
• Ended with 109 DLs
• Health 77, software 21
• 147,946 messages were transcribed into records
  and imported into an SQL database.
• 60,000 members
• 19,000 posters.
• (Nonnecke, 2000 Nonnecke Preece, Chi2000)

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Lurking in 77 health and 21 software support
lists
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Variation of lurking levels for cumulative posts
over 3 months
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lurking in health software groups

• Low lurking when- lists are small- traffic is
  high- messages are short- few single posters-
  stars are present (Nonnecke, 2000) (Nonnecke
  Preece, 2000)

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Social presence in Babble(Erickson et al.,
Chi99)
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Criteria for success

• UsabilitySpeed of learning
• Productivity
• User satisfaction
• Retention
• Errors

• SociabilityNo. participants
• No. messages
• Reciprocity
• On-topic discussion
• Empathy
• Trust Social satisfaction
• Lurking
• Uncivil behavior

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Overview

• Definitions
• Sociability usability
• Research example
• Conclusions future research

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Research

• Community dynamics and the role of an online
  patient support community in everyday life (Diane
  Maloney-Krichmar)
• Lurking and participation in 1000 online
  communities (Dorine Andrews, Blair Nonnecke, Greg
  Morton)
• Communicating trust using mobile devices
  empathy predicability (Heidi Feng, Jonathan
  Lazar)
• What makes online communities successful?
  Evaluation heuristics and metrics (Chadia Abras)
• Framework for online community development
  (Clarisse S. de Souza)
• Supporting lightweight communication in health
  support communities (Clarisse S. de Souza)

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We shape our buildings, and afterwards our
buildings shape us Winston Churchill
My experience of the world is that things left
to themselves dont get right T. H. Huxley
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Web sites

• www.ifsm.umbc.edu/onlinecommunitiesOnline
  Communities Desinging Usability, supporting
  sociability(2000)Jenny Preece, John Wiley
  Sonswww.id-book.comInteraction Design
  Beyond HCI(2002) J. Preece, Y. Rogers, H. Sharp,
  John Wiley Sons www.ifsm.umbc.edu/preece

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www.ifsm.umbc.edu/onlinecommunities
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Id-book.com
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Publications

• Andrews, D. Preece, J. (2001) A conceptual
  framework for demographic groups resistant to
  online community interaction. Proc. HICSS-34 IEEE
  Computer Society, Maui, Hawaii.
• Preece, J. Ghozati, K. (2000) Experiencing
  empathy online. In R. Rice J. Katz, The
  Internet and Health communication experience and
  expectations. Thousand Oaks Sage
• Nonnecke, B. Preece, J. (2000) Counting the
  silent. ACM CHI2000, Hague, 73-80.
• Brown, J., van Dam, A., Earnshaw, R.,
  Encarnacao, J., Guedj, R., Preece, J.,
  Shneiderman, B. Vince, J. (1999).
  Human-centered computing, online communities and
  virtual environments. ACM Interactions, 6 (5).
• Lazar, J., Tsoa, R., Preece, J. (1999). One
  foot in cyberspace and the other on the ground A
  case study of analysis and design issues in a
  hybrid virtual and physical community. WebNet
  Journal Internet Technologies, Applications and
  Issues, 1(3), 49-57.
• Nonnecke, B., Preece., J. (2000). Persistence
  and lurkers A pilot study. Proc. HICSS-33 IEEE
  Computer Society, Maui, Hawaii.
• Preece, J. (1998). Empathic communities Reaching
  out across the Web. ACM Interactions 5 (2),
  32-43.
• Preece, J. (1999). Empathic communities
  Balancing emotional and factual communication.
  Interacting with Computers, 12, 63-77.
• Preece, J., Ghozati, K. (1998). In search of
  empathy online A review of 100 online
  communities. Proc. 1998 Association for
  Information Systems, Americas Conference,
  Baltimore, USA.

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Additional material if time
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Community Framework Sociability
Community type
Stage
Size
Culturei.e. local, national
Sociabilityi.e. On-topic Reciprocity
Empathy Trust Identifiability
Common ground Privacy
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Community Framework Usability
Individual context
Community context
ConvivialityEfficiencyEffectiveness
Software
Infrastructure
Media type Network capacity Computer capacity
Navigation design Community design Information
design
Consistent Controllable Predictable Universal
usability
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Trustworthiness

• Is evidence of trustworthiness needed?What are
  the implications for- social interaction?-
  privacy and security?
• How can trust be assessed communicated?- what
  are the usability issues?

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Social capital

• A society characterized by general reciprocity
  is more efficient than a distrustful society
• Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 2000. P.21

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Evaluating measuring sociability
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Cyber-balkanization

• Internet enables us to confine our communication
  to precisely those people who share our interests
  and are like us. Fragmentation and group
  polarization, are significant risks.
• Cass Sunstein, republic.com,
  2001, p. 192

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Research Empathy

• Knowing what another person is feeling, feeling
  what another person is feeling and responding
  compassionately to another person
• Levenson Reuf, 1992

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Analysis of 500 messages
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Evaluating measuring usability