A Field Study of Community Bar: (Mis)-matches between Theory and Practice
Date
2006-03-27
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Abstract
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 an in-depth field
study of a group s on-going use of Community Bar over several weeks. We use
results obtained from this study to reflect upon the matches and mis-matches
that occurred between the theoretical usage behaviour predicted by our
theoretical design principles versus the actual usage behaviours observed in
the deployed implementation. As a critique, this reflection is an important
iterative step in considering how CB should be redesigned, and serves as a
cautionary tale of the difficulty of translating theoretical nuances into
practice.
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Computer Science