Human-Computer Interaction in Online Communities

Copyright© 2001, Australian Computer Society Inc. General permission to republish, but not for profit, all or part of this material is granted, provided that the JRPIT copyright notice is given and that reference is made to the publication, to its date of issue, and to the fact that reprinting privileges were granted by permission of the Australian Computer Society Inc. 1. INTRODUCTION Our research focus has long been the study and support of human-computer interaction, but it has gradually shifted from a focus on individuals and their cognitive processes to groups and their cognitive processes. Some groups that we have been supporting and studying have been professional communities defined only by their common interests for whom we, or others, provide services. Other have been major international projects with better defined membership related to an agenda of specific tasks. What we have come to realize is that the effective support of such communities depends on modeling not only the cognitive processes of individuals, but also those of the community as a whole. Many of the tools we have developed support community processes, and the most significant and challenging of these are those that model these processes dynamically so that the community can reflect upon its own operations. One may see some of the issues by contrasting two recent books: Nielsen's (2000) Designing Web Usability is a valuable application of classical HCI principles to the design of web sites; Kim's (2000) Community Building on the Web is also valuable in proposing well-grounded good practice for managing the human side of a web community. What is needed now is a wider concept of HCI