Building for social translucence: a domain analysis and prototype system

Citation: David W. McDonald, Stephanie Gokhman, Mark Zachry (2012) Building for social translucence: a domain analysis and prototype system. Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work - CSCW '12 (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1145/2145204.2145301
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1145/2145204.2145301
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1145/2145204.2145301
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Building for social translucence: a domain analysis and prototype system
Tagged: Computer Science (RSS)

Summary

This paper tackles the question of how to design a system that reflects principles of social translucence as described by Erickson and Kellogg (2000). The paper considers architectural features of systems that support features of this kind. They conduct a domain analysis to identify traits of socially translucent systems, then detail them as operating in the Action Dimension (composed of content representations, interactions among users, relations among users and content, and systemic state e.g. logins, application for higher privileges), and in the Systemic Interpretation Dimension (composed of Instances -- a discrete event, Series -- a meaningful sequence of Instances, and Structures -- social structures such as community norms, roles, and expectations).

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

This paper offers an application of social translucence to a prototype design, exemplifying the traits of "(a) mutual awareness of activities, (b) contextual propagation of socially salient cues (visibility), and (c) accountability for one's actions."(p. 637)