Chat Circles

Although current online chat environments provide new opportunities for communication, they are quite constrained in their ability to convey many important pieces of social information, ranging from the number of participants in a conversation to the subtle nuances of expression that enrich face to face speech. In this paper we present Chat Circles, an abstract graphical interface for synchronous conversation. Here, presence and activity are made manifest by changes in color and form, proximity-based filtering intuitively breaks large groups into conversational clusters, and the archives of a conversation are made visible through an integrated history interface. Our goal in this work is to create a richer environment for online discussions. Keywords chatroom, conversation, social visualization, turn-taking, graphical history, Internet, World Wide Web

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1999
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Fernanda B. Viégas, Judith S. Donath
• Keywords: Abstract Graphical Interface, CHI 1999, Human Computer Interaction, Online Chat Environments, Synchronous Conversation