Socio-technical gaps in online collaborative consumption (OCC): an example of the etsy community

This study attempts to investigate socio-technical gaps in online collaborative consumption (OCC) in order to improve its user experience, and interaction design requirements. A new combined methodological framework, "predictive ethnography", is proposed to evaluate OCC. Due to its features as a community where OCC takes place, Etsy is the focus of this study. The results from this study, suggest that the sociability issues have more significance in this community compared to the usability problems. The most significant socio-technical gaps concerned Trust creation features such as customers' reviews and rating systems, Relevant rules of behaviour, Clear displayed policies, and Social presence tools.

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