Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability

Industrial Management & Data Systems

ISSN: 0263-5577

Article publication date: 1 December 2000

2505

Keywords

Citation

Preece, J. (2000), "Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 100 No. 9, pp. 459-460. https://doi.org/10.1108/imds.2000.100.9.459.3

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Jenny Preece has taken a leap into the core of cyberspace and looks in detail at what are fast becoming the building blocks of the Internet – virtual communities.

What exactly is an online or virtual community? How can you define the word “community” if one can exist in cyberspace? Can technology really have such an impact on society and can society really shape technology? All these questions are explored in Online Communities – interesting for anyone wanting to create and maintain successful online communities.

Providing advice on software selection, with guidelines and examples throughout, Preece emphasises how to begin designing effective online communities and how to evaluate their effectiveness once up and running: “Communities with good sociability have social policies that support the community’s purpose and are understandable, socially acceptable and practicable”.

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