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SociallyTranslucentSystems
MeatballWiki | RecentChanges | Random Page | Indices | CategoriesWhy it is more efficient to set a transparent glass in a door instead of putting a written notice on it: "Open with care"?
From the [site]:
"We call systems which provide perceptually-based social cues which afford awareness and accountability "Socially Translucent Systems." In such systems we believe it will be easier for users to carry on coherent discussions; to observe and imitate others' actions; to engage in peer pressure; to create, notice, and conform to social conventions. We see social translucence as a fundamental requirement for supporting communication and collaboration." (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center)
See Wiki:TomErickson as well, although it's very old (before he moved to IBM).
Most of the paper discusses a persistent-comment chat system called "Babble". In some ways, Babble has some similarities to "ThreadMode" wiki interaction. See http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/AdoptionOfBabble.html for an updated study of Babble, including several interesting social/community observations (eg. WayLaying?, which is something that can happen at EverythingTwo)
- The concept of SocialAffordance?'s is particularly intriguing, as is the observation that some activities were inter-dependent while others were one way dependent. Also interesting is the observation that a two-way affordance encourages accountability, due to the "I know you know" factor.
- Also deserving of it's own page would be the concept of a SocialProxy.
Several of the other papers at Erickson's site are interesting, especially for their early views of the Internet and the Web. (For instance, http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/GopherVR.html discusses a possible 3D environment for the GopherProtocol.)
References
Bradner, E. (1999) The adoption and use of 'Babble': A field study of chat in the workplace. In The Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (ECSCW), September, 1999.
Bradner, E., Kellogg, W. A., and Erickson, T. (1998) Babble: Supporting conversation in the workplace. Paper for CSCW 98 Workshop "Designing Virtual Communities for Work", Fall, 1998, http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/Babble.CSCW98.workshop.html
Erickson, T. (2000) Putting the there there: Visualizing community data. Position paper for CSCW '00 Workshop on Dealing with Community Data. Available from http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/ThereThere.pdf
Erickson, T., and Kellogg, W. A. (2000) Social translucence: An approach to designing systems that support social processes. To appear in Transactions on Computer Human Interface, ACM Press. Available from http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/st_TOCHI.html
Erickson, T., Smith, D. N., Kellogg, W. A., Laff, M., Richards, J. T., Bradner, E. (1999) Socially translucent systems: Social proxies, persistent conversation, and the design of "Babble". In CHI '99. Available from http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/loops.chi99.paper.html