Showing papers by "Sara Kiesler published in 2012"

Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design

Abstract: Online communities are among the most popular destinations on the Internet, but not all online communities are equally successful. For every flourishing Facebook, there is a moribund Friendster--not to mention the scores of smaller social networking sites that never attracted enough members to be viable. This book offers lessons from theory and empirical research in the social sciences that can help improve the design of online communities. The social sciences can tell us much about how to make online communities thrive, offering theories of individual motivation and human behavior that, properly interpreted, can inform particular design choices for online communities. The authors draw on the literature in psychology, economics, and other social sciences, as well as their own research, translating general findings into useful design claims. They explain, for example, how to encourage information contributions based on the theory of public goods, and how to build members' commitment based on theories of interpersonal bond formation. For each design claim, they offer supporting evidence from theory, experiments, or observational studies.The book focuses on five high-level design challenges: starting a new community, attracting new members, encouraging commitment, encouraging contribution, and regulating misbehavior and conflict. By organizing their presentation around these fundamental design features, the authors encourage practitioners to consider alternatives rather than simply adapting a feature seen on other sites.

Building member attachment in online communities: applying theories of group identity and interpersonal bonds

Abstract: Online communities are increasingly important to organizations and the general public, but there is little theoretically based research on what makes some online communities more successful than others. In this article, we apply theory from the field of social psychology to understand how online communities develop member attachment, an important dimension of community success. We implemented and empirically tested two sets of community features for building member attachment by strengthening either group identity or interpersonal bonds. To increase identity-based attachment, we gave members information about group activities and intergroup competition, and tools for group-level communication. To increase bond-based attachment, we gave members information about the activities of individual members and interpersonal similarity, and tools for interpersonal communication. Results from a six-month field experiment show that participants' visit frequency and self-reported attachment increased in both conditions. Community features intended to foster identity-based attachment had stronger effects than features intended to foster bond-based attachment. Participants in the identity condition with access to group profiles and repeated exposure to their group's activities visited their community twice as frequently as participants in other conditions. The new features also had stronger effects on newcomers than on old-timers. This research illustrates how theory from the social science literature can be applied to gain a more systematic understanding of online communities and how theory-inspired features can improve their success.

Personalization in HRI: a longitudinal field experiment

Abstract: Creating and sustaining rapport between robots and people is critical for successful robotic services. As a first step towards this goal, we explored a personalization strategy with a snack delivery robot. We designed a social robotic snack delivery service, and, for half of the participants, personalized the service based on participants' service usage and interactions with the robot. The service ran for each participant for two months. We evaluated this strategy during a 4-month field experiment. The results show that, as compared with the social service alone, adding personalized service improved rapport, cooperation, and engagement with the robot during service encounters.

Social transparency in networked information exchange: a theoretical framework

Abstract: An emerging Internet trend is greater social transparency, such as the use of real names in social networking sites, feeds of friends' activities, traces of others' re-use of content, and visualizations of team interactions. Researchers lack a systematic way to conceptualize and evaluate social transparency. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for thinking about social transparency. This framework builds upon multiple streams of research, including prior work in CSCW on social translucence, awareness, and visual analytics, to describe three dimensions of online behavior that can be made transparent. Based on the framework, we consider the social inferences transparency supports and introduce a set of research questions about social transparency's implications for computer-supported collaborative work and information exchange.

Ripple effects of an embedded social agent: a field study of a social robot in the workplace

Abstract: Prior research has investigated the effect of interactive social agents presented on computer screens or embodied in robots. Much of this research has been pursued in labs and brief field studies. Comparatively little is known about social agents embedded in the workplace, where employees have repeated interactions with the agent, alone and with others. We designed a social robot snack delivery service for a workplace, and evaluated the service over four months allowing each employee to use it for two months. We report on how employees responded to the robot and the service over repeated encounters. Employees attached different social roles to the robot beyond a delivery person as they incorporated the robot's visit into their workplace routines. Beyond one-on-one interaction, the robot created a ripple effect in the workplace, triggering new behaviors among employees, including politeness, protection of the robot, mimicry, social comparison, and even jealousy. We discuss the implications of these ripple effects for designing services incorporating social agents.

Parent-driven use of wearable cameras for autism support: a field study with families

Abstract: Recorded images of children's activities can be useful to caregivers and clinicians who need behavioral evidence to support children with autism. However, image capture systems for autism are typically complex and provide only a top-down, outsider's view. In this work, we assessed the use of cameras worn by children to record the context of their activities and interactions from their perspective. We used a technology probe to explore how this simple, parent-driven system could be designed for families to adopt in their homes. We present the results of a five-week field study with five families. The system helped parents to (1) see the world from their child's eyes, (2) increase their understanding of their child's needs when their child is uncommunicative, and (3) help them encourage their child's social engagement. We discuss how these systems can be designed and used to their full potential.

Video increases the perception of naturalness during remote interactions with latency

Abstract: Visual telecommunication systems support natural interaction by allowing users to remotely interact with one another using natural speech and movement. Network connections and computation cause delays that may result in interactions that feel unnatural or belabored. In an experiment using an audiovisual telecommunications device, synchronized audio and video delays were added to participants' conversations to determine how delay would affect conversation. To examine the effects of visual information on conversation, we also compared the audiovisual trials to trials in which participants were presented only the audio information. We present self-report data indicating that delay had a weaker impact when both audio and video channels were available, for delays up to 500 ms, than when only the audio channel was available.

Social Transparency in Networked Information Exchange: A Framework and Research Question

Abstract: An emerging Internet trend is greater social transparency, such as the use of real names in social networking sites, feeds of friends’ activities, traces of others’ re-use of content, and visualizations of team interactions. Researchers lack a systematic way to conceptualize and evaluate social transparency. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for thinking about social transparency. This framework builds upon multiple streams of research, including prior work in CSCW on social translucence, awareness, and visual analytics, to describe three dimensions of online behavior that can be made transparent. Based on the framework, we consider the social inferences transparency supports and introduce a set of research questions about social transparency’s implications for computer-supported collaborative work and information exchange. ACM Classification Keywords function, such as tracking the actions of a group on a shared H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous.

Workflow transparency in a microtask marketplace

Abstract: Interdependent tasks in Mechanical Turk (MTurk) can be managed efficiently with a workflow, a sequence of tasks through which work passes to its completion. We ask if workers should be informed about the workflow, which we call workflow transparency. Transparency could motivate workers or induce social loafing. We describe three experiments to determine the effects of workflow transparency in MTurk. We compared a text description of the workflow, a visualization of the workflow, and the combination of text and visualization with a control condition giving no workflow information. Workflow transparency marginally increased volunteerism on a charity identification task (experiment 1) and significantly increased volunteerism and quality on a business identification task (experiment 2). Results were weaker with a less experienced worker sample (experiment 3). We suggest further research on the design of workflow information to increase workers' motivation.

Do collaborators' annotations help or hurt asynchronous analysis

Abstract: Our study investigated the use of annotations in an asynchronous crime-solving task. In Study 1, regardless of whether they anticipated a partner, participants had better performance if they annotated more about connections across documents. In Study 2, annotations that pointed to more connections across documents improved the performance of the second participant. Annotations that pointed to few connections across documents hurt performance, especially when people were more aware of their partners. This research suggests that future collaborative tools should help people discern useful from useless annotations.

iPod for Home Balance Rehabilitation Exercise Monitoring

Abstract: When people fall and experience problems of balance, physical therapists (PTs) often prescribe home balance exercises involving repetitive head movements. Currently, patients' compliance and performance of these home exercises are invisible to PTs, who need the data to make informed decisions for treatment adjustments. We present an easy-to-use tool that monitors patients' home balance exercises and provides PTs with accurate, quantitative patient data. The tool, Head Coach, is a wearable device implemented in an iPod, fitted in a pocket on a baseball cap, and worn by patients while doing their exercises. We tested the reliability of the system using a magnetic field tracking device (Polhemus) as the gold standard. The test showed that the iPod can be used to accurately track home balance exercises.