The Zephyr Help Instance: Promoting Ongoing Activity in a CSCW System

If Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems are to be successful over time, it will be necessary to promote ongoing and continuing activity, not just initial adoption. In this paper, we consider what technical and social affordances are required to encourage the continued use of a CSCW system. To explore these issues, we examine a chat-like system, the Zephyr Help Instance, which is used extensively at MIT. The Help Instance facilitates users asking questions of one another, and is an example of a distributed help and problem-solving system. We provide an overview of the system

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1996
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Mark S. Ackerman, Leysia Palen
• Keywords: CHI 1996, Computer-supported Cooperative Work, Help Instance, Human Computer Interaction, Zephyr Help Instance