Studying online support communities: Investigating network patterns and characteristics of social support

People’s activities on the internet have expanded from mainly retrieving information to communicating with each other in virtual settings. Thus, research investigating social interactions in online communities is becoming more and more important. However, the multi-faceted approaches of existing studies for the analysis of online communities make it difficult to combine the findings into a comprehensive understanding. This shows the need for holistic investigations of online communities. This thesis provides such a holistic approach by investigating a combination of different aspects of a selected online support community for older people. MOSuC (Model of Online Support Communities), a model describing the key aspects of online support communities was developed based on existing theories of computer-mediated communication (CMC) as well as theoretical perspectives on social support. Five studies were conducted, each addressing one of the different aspects of the case study community: (i) the message content, (ii) the conversations structure, (iii) the social network of related community members, (iv) the roles that online community members take on, and (vi) the taget population’s needs concerning the exchange of social support in online communities. The findings of these individual studies were then combined in context of MOSuC in order to provide a holistic description of the community. As a result, this thesis provides detailed insight into the characteristics of the case study community as well as the interplay and dependencies between different aspects of the community. Based on the integration of multiple studies, the thesis sheds light on two main issues: the characteristics of the individual aspects of the community as well as how these aspects are related to and affect each other. In addition to the findings of the studies, the thesis also contributes MOSuC, which serves both as a theoretical framework of the aspects of online support communities, as well as a practical tool for integrating the individual studies. In addition, the application, modification and integration of multiple methods in this thesis provide a novel methodological way for an integrative analysis of online support communities

Informationsdesign im Fahrzeug : Entwürfe und Prototypen von Bedien- und Anzeigekonzepten eines Fahrzeuginformationssystems unter Berücksichtigung ergonomischer Richtlinien

Im Rahmen dieser Bachelor-Arbeit wurden Bedien- und Anzeigekonzepte (BAK) für ein Fahrerinformationssystem in einem Kraftfahrzeug entworfen und ausgearbeitet. Aus den bereits geleisteten Forschungs- und Entwicklungsarbeiten an Fahrerinformationssystemen, sowie aus Erfahrungswerten des Teams HMI-Konzepte und -Evaluation der DaimlerChrysler AG, wurden funktionelle und ergonomische Rahmenbedingungen sowie weiterführende Zielsetzungen abgeleitet und dieser Arbeit zugrunde gelegt. Relevante theoretische und ergonomische Grundlagen, sowie die Konzeptionen betreffende Normen wurden zusammengestellt und ihre Bedeutung für die Konzeptionen herausgearbeitet. Ein Konzept wurde auf Basis eines berührungsempfindlichen Bildschirms mit vollem Funktionsumfang entwickelt. Zwei, in ihrem Funktionsumfang unterschiedlich stark reduzierte Schalter- Konzepte stellten den zweiten Teil der Konzeption dar. Für jede Darstellungsform wurden mehrere Entwürfe ausgearbeitet und auf Konformität zu den oben genannten Grundlagen hin untersucht. Bei der Konzeption wurde besonderer Wert auf eine konsistente Gestaltung, sowie auf die Einhaltung der relevanten Normen gelegt. Von den Konzepten ausgehend wurden drei Prototypen mit der Autorenumgebung Macromedia DirectorTM entwickelt, welche die Funktionalität der BAKs erfahrbar machen

Construct-A-Vis : exploring the free-form visualization processes of children

Funding: UK EPSRC and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project-ID 251654672 – TRR 161 (Project C01).Building data analysis skills is part of modern elementary school curricula. Recent research has explored how to facilitate children's understanding of visual data representations through completion exercises which highlight links between concrete and abstract mappings. This approach scaffolds visualization activities by presenting a target visualization to children. But how can we engage children in more free-form visual data mapping exercises that are driven by their own mapping ideas? How can we scaffold a creative exploration of visualization techniques and mapping possibilities? We present Construct-A-Vis, a tablet-based tool designed to explore the feasibility of free-form and constructive visualization activities with elementary school children. Construct-A-Vis provides adjustable levels of scaffolding visual mapping processes. It can be used by children individually or as part of collaborative activities. Findings from a study with elementary school children using Construct-A-Vis individually and in pairs highlight the potential of this free-form constructive approach, as visible in children's diverse visualization outcomes and their critical engagement with the data and mapping processes. Based on our study findings we contribute insights into the design of free-form visualization tools for children, including the role of tool-based scaffolding mechanisms and shared interactions to guide visualization activities with children.PostprintPeer reviewe

Inclusive design for older people

The Centre for HCI Design (HCID) at City University London has inclusive design as one of its key research themes. Older people have been the main research population we have been studying under this theme for a number of years now. Our work in this theme focuses primarily on the design and evaluation of web interfaces for this population. In this paper we describe our work in this area

Introduction to social network analysis

Online communities and social software are revolutionizing the way we interact with the web. Analysing the interactions that take place there is complex. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a powerful way of doing such analysis. This tutorial provides a detailed introduction to SNA. The theory is backed up with a number of practical case studies

Theories and methods for studying online communities for people with disabilities and older people

This chapter discusses the importance of online communities for people with disabilities and the elderly. It points to a number of weaknesses of existing text based computer mediated communication (CMC) applications, but also highlights some of the key benefits of CMC for these special groups of users. The key theoretical foundations of CMC research are then covered in detail, explaining how those could help in studying online social interaction of people with special needs. This chapter points out the fact that there is valuable existing research in the domain of theoretical CMC but highlights the weakness up to now in applying it to the study of online communities for people with special needs

Computer Mediated Communication of Older People

In this paper we describe work we have been engaged with for a number of years now in investigating Computer Mediated Communication of older people

Investigating social network patterns within an empathic online community for older people

In this paper, we study the social network structure of an online discussion board within SeniorNet, an empathic online community for older people. We apply Social Network Analysis (SNA) to analyse the communication patterns and relationships between members of the discussion board. In addition to looking at the structure of the exchanged messages within the discussion board as a whole, we also investigate associations between the communication content and the social network patterns. Our findings show distinct differences between the social network patterns of empathic and non-empathic communications. For example, members are more connected and closer to each other in the social networks that are based on empathic communication compared to non-empathic communication. Additionally our results show that the type of empathic communication (e.g. different kinds of support) is linked to the social network structure within the discussion board