A field study of community bar: (mis)-matches between theory and practice

Community Bar (CB) is groupware supporting informal awareness and casual interaction. CB's design was derived from three sources: prior empirical research findings concerning informal awareness and casual interaction, a comprehensive sociological theory called the Locales Framework, and the Focus/Nimbus model of awareness. We conducted a field study of a group's on-going CB use. We use its results to reflect upon the matches and mis-matches that occurred between the theoretical and actual usage behaviors anticipated by our design principles vs. those observed in our deployment. As a critique, this reflection is an important iterative step in recognizing flaws not just as usability problems, but as an incorrect translation of theory into design that can be re-analyzed from a theoretical perspective. Categories and Subject Descriptors K.4.3 [Computers and Society]: Organizational Impacts

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: GROUP
• Authors: Natalia A. Romero, Gregor McEwan, Saul Greenberg
• Keywords: Applied Computing, Casual Interaction, GROUP 2007, Group's On-going Cb, Informal Awareness