How to Engage Users in Online Sociability

The chapter presents and combines the results of two case studies dealing with online communities1 in order to understand under which conditions people are willing to engage in online sociability. Of the two studies considered, one case collected user needs data for an urban mobile application; the other focused on a virtual network connecting home and outside organizations. The chapter shows that people are interested in engaging in online networks mainly to connect to people they already know, but not to get in contact with the strangers and the anonymous others available to them online. The author argues that these results cast doubt on the viability of one single view on online sociability and hope that understanding the dynamics and motivations underlying online communities will help construct better online social places where people will feel more engaged. Experimentation should never be goal-directed, otherwise data collection is limited, it is these last ones that, actually, have to be targeted even to some practical goal.” —Bruno Munari, Italian artist and designer, translated from exhibition catalogue, Didattica 2. Perché e come, 1977