2009 International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering
Investigating User Experience of Online Communities: The Influence of Community Type
Vivian Hsueh-Hua Chen
Henry Been-Lirn Duh
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University Singapore
[email protected]
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore Singapore
[email protected]
Abstract—Current literature has identified key components and successful factors of online communities. However, research tends to study a specific type of community at a time. This study investigates users’ needs across different types of communities in order to gain a holistic view of users’ experiences. Moreover, how the nature and overall purpose of the online community influences users’ participation pattern has not been extensively studied. Hence, this study also attempts to understand how the nature of the community and the goals of the users influence their participation of online communities. Through twenty-four in-depth interviews, critical factors that influence users’ participation in online communities were identified.
that the main purpose for people to participate in online games community is for leisure and pleasure. Based on the above discussion, there are four types of needs that drive people to actively seek for online communities to join: purposive needs, self-development needs, social needs and entertainment needs. Purposive needs refer to the need for people to accomplish specific goals. It could be doing business, knowledge exchan1e, completing a task, validating a decision…etc (e.g., [2], [8]). Self-development needs refer to the need for people to discover, develop, or enhance their identities. Stryker and Statham [21] contend that identities are an important source of motivation. People have the need to establish role-identity for self-definition. Social needs refer to a basic human need to “belong”, to feel connected and accepted by other people [4]. Entertainment needs refer to the need for people to feel relaxed and fun. Examples include creating fictional identities, and facing virtual challenges [14].
Keywords-component; Virtual Community; Online Community; Computer-Mediated Communication; User Studies
I.
INTRODUCTION
Research has shown that online communities can possibly aid commercial success [10], [20]. Hence, designing a successful online community has become an important issue. In order to design a successful online community, it is necessary to understand users’ usage patterns and preferences. The current study therefore seeks to understand key factors that influence users’ behaviors in participating online communities. II.
B. Participation Sociability and usability are influential factors in designing a successful online community [17]. Sociability concerns with the relationship building among members. Usability refers to how users interact with technology.
LITERATURE REVIEW
1) Social Aspects Important issues of social aspects of online community include: trust, group dynamic, sense of identification and interaction quality. Trust is the belief that party members will refrain from taking advantages of the situation or of other people [15]. It is a critical factor in a majority of the online communities [2] [13]. Ridings, Gefen & Arinze [19] indicate that trust of members’ ability and integrity are the two dimensions of trust in online communities.
From existing literatures, three major aspects are identified to explain the development of online communities: participants’ motivation, participation and loyalty. A. Motivation Users’ motivation for joining online communities is primarily driven by individual needs. Hagel & Armstrong [7] identified four types of consumer needs: interest, relationship building, transaction and fantasy from online community users. McKenna & Bargh [14] argue that the motivators for participating in online communities are self-related motivators and social motivators. Dholakia, Bagozzi & Pearo [6] built a framework and indicated that individual motives for participating in online communities are purposive value, selfdiscovery, maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity, social enhancement and entertainment value. Hsu & Lu [9] argue
978-0-7695-3823-5/09 $26.00 © 2009 IEEE DOI 10.1109/CSE.2009.367
Group dynamic refers to issues relevant to group process such as group goals, group roles, group rules, leadership, cohesiveness and managing group crisis. Active member participation is another factor that influences the success of an online community [20]. Studies [22] have suggested that in order to run an online community intelligently, clear vision, good leadership, offline activities, rules and member roles are very important.
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Sense of identification refers to users’ identification with the community. Users view themselves as part of the community that they belong to. A shared social identity can foster loyalty and strengthen customers’ willingness to commit to the relationship with their services/product providers [4].
at a time. This study investigates users’ needs across different types of communities in order to gain a holistic view of users’ experiences. Moreover, how the nature of the online community influences users’ participation pattern has not been extensively studied. Users seem to have greater concerns on certain factors than others depending on the type of community [6]. For instance, users in e-commerce communities may be more concerned about security issues. However, security is not an issue within the gaming community as research has shown. In addition, users who play different roles and invest different amounts of their time and energy in an online community may have different expectations. Therefore, this study also attempts to understand how the nature of the community and the goals of the users influence their online behaviors.
Interaction quality includes the content and process of the interaction. Users seek for good information [16] and quality of offerings [2]. For instance, participants of auction sites contribute to the information database of the community for the purpose of providing members information for evaluating products or services [20]. For communities that aim to satisfy the need to socialize, users would try to become intimate in their interaction with others [14]. 2) Technical Aspects With regards to the technical aspect of online community, site management[11][13][20]., security, usability and reliability are the primary concerns.
III.
METHODOLODY
A. Site Selection In-depth interviewing was conducted to understand the users’ experiences in different types of online communities. Four major types of online communities were selected: Ecommerce, topic-specific, blogs, and portal communities. Based on the ranking from Alexa 2007, the most popular sites in each type of online communities was selected. The Ecommerce site selected was Taiwan Yahoo Auction. The topicspecific community selected was Mobile 01. The blog site selected was. The portal community selected was MSN group.
Site management refers to the presence of a moderator who monitors the information exchange process within the community. The rules are meant to protect other members of the community from, for instance, fraudulent transactions [20]. Site management also refers to encouraging people to participate actively in the discussion [19]. Security is a critical issue for online communities, especially those involved in business. Members want to be ensured that their financial information are kept private and cannot be hacked by outsiders. In online gaming communities, assets are accumulated by players during the game process and they want to be assured that the assets they have gained will not be erased due to security problems of the website.
B. Participants Twenty-four Taiwanese participants were recruited through a recruiting company. The screening criteria is based on their profession, site participated, and history of internet usage. Participants must not work in internet-relevant profession, and participate in the site of interest for over a year. Participants were fifteen students and nine working adults; Fourteen females and ten males. Their age ranges from 20 to 30 with mean at 24.6. For each type of online community, six people were interviewed.
Usability concerns easy use of the online community. Preece et al. [18] conducted a study to determine the reasons for lurking and 7.8% indicated that they were not able to post because they did not know how to post to the group. Hence, site managers must provide clear instructions how to register, log in, read messages, post reply and initiate new discussions.
C. Procedure Twenty-four face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted at each participant’s home over a period of three weeks. Interview questions were developed based on literature review. Major sections include users’ usage patterns, their motivation and participating behaviors. Each participant signed informed consent form and was paid USD$35. Each interview lasted about 45-90 minutes and was audio-taped. All interviews were later transcribed and analyzed.
Reliability of the site means the degree of likelihood that it will be up and running when members log in. Unreliable sites cause distress and disappointment. The lack of reliability may cause members to look for alternative communities that they can join and thus erode customer loyalty. C. Community Loyalty Loyalty is an intention to keep on using a service. Hsu & Lu [9] believe that loyalty can be understood as customers’ beliefs on their future participation in an online gaming community. Another way to look at loyalty is through users’ promotional behaviors for the online community [11].
IV.
ANALYSIS
This study employed the technique adapted from Lincoln and Cuba’s [12] constant comparison method. They recommended “unitizing and categorizing…units of information,” in order to systematically arrive at emergent themes and categories. “Unitizing” is assigning a meaning and value to an idea that is the “smallest piece of information
The current literature has identified key components and successful factors of online communities. However, the current literature tends to study a specific type of community
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about something that can stand by itself” [12]. This “smallest piece of information” came from readings of the transcripts and became the unit for categorizing. “Categorizing” is to organize those meaning unites and decide on common themes. The analysis below is based on literature review and aims to illustrate users’ perceptions and ideas. Pseudo names reflective of participants’ gender were used to protect participants’ privacy.
Need fulfillment is still the primary drive for participants to obtain membership. Purposive needs are identified by all participants. All of them joined an online community to gather information about their current interests. Fulfilling social needs is also shared by all participants. All of the participants mentioned they are able to maintain or build personal relationships through online communities. They join the online community to keep in touch with old friends and/or make new friends online. Entertainment needs is also important. Fifteen participants view participating in an online community as a leisure activity. They come online not to create fictional identities or to satisfy their cravings for fantasy, but to relax or pass time.
A. Users’Usage Patten In terms of participants’ online activities, users perform very similar tasks but the degree of involvement is different. Participants read or write blogs, check e-mails, visit their online communities, and chat with people via MSN or BBS. However, the degree of involvement in those activities may vary. Few participants never chatted with people online. Two third of the participants visit their communities on daily basis. Half of the participants visit blogs to know what their existing friends are doing, and the other half mainly wanted to get to know new friends. Some of them spent long hours maintaining their own blog and “record what happens” (Charles, blog).
Promotional information was mentioned by twenty one participants as a way they became interested in an online community. Promotional information comes from existing users, the service provider or mass media. Seventeen participants were introduced to certain online communities by their friends, relatives, co-workers who are existing users. Seven of them discovered the community through links from other websites. Half of them got information from advertisements or TV commercials.
Two types of users were found for participants in this study: focused and scattered users. Focused users are users who tend to visit few sites religiously and spend a lot of time there. Those communities are usually the ones that relate to their major interests. Scattered users are users who will visit multiple sites a day but spend little time in each site. Comparing to scattered users, focused users has higher expectations for the technical difficulties and the quality of interaction of the site. They expect the site to provide valuable information with the fastest update possible. They are willing to contribute and promote the online community. They also have less tolerance for deviant behaviors.
C. Users’ Participation and Requirements Participation behaviors can be understood from three aspects: merits of content, social relationship maintenance, self-development, and technical support. 1) Merits of Content Essentially, people are drawn to the content each online community can provide. Participants mentioned factors as: information quality and quantity and frequent updates. Information quality and quantity. Half of the participants mentioned the importance of the size of community. They believe participating in an online community that has large population usually contains massive amount of information and constant conversation flow. They also expect the discussions to be active, meaningful and fruitful. Jasmine (ecommerce) said: "Some people just wrote one line response. It's meaningless and boring". It was also observed that half of the participants expressed desire to share information because "everyone actively participates in discussions based on their experiences " (Shannon, topic-specific).
In terms of loyalty, Users have short time attention span for online content/activities. Users get involved in selective online communities based on their needs and interests during that period of time in their life. When asking why she continues to participate in the online community, eight participants said "it is convenient”. Six participants continue to visit their online communities because "it became a habit. Many users participate in multiple communities to serve their different needs. Participants stop participating in an online community when they are not interested in the topic or information any more. Ten participants share this reason. When users become occupied in real life, they become more selective. Users change their browsing patterns when their needs change.
Frequent updates. Fifteen participants said their continuous participation is due to the frequent updates that they can get. Charles (blog) visit different sites with different frequency. “I visit the online community less if the information doesn't update daily”. Sean (topic-specific) added: “If the service of the site is not all that great but you can always get rich and updated information, people will still participate”.
B. Users’ needs and motivations Participants provided varieties of reasons for them to join an online community. They usually have multiple motivators. Needs fulfillment, which includes purposive and social needs, and entertainment needs, as well as promotional information are the main reasons identified by participants.
Constant conversation flow is critical. Linda (topicspecific) described: “Nobody responded to my posting and just talked about everything else. I never went there again”. Participants care a lot about getting responses from others.
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When participants feel like they can “always get responses from others” (Don, portal) and obtain updated information, they tend to be content to stay there.
psychological fulfillment. Mark (blog) enjoyed particularly the life stories he read. “It is very fun. It's like the 'Truman Show', like you become part of other people's lives.” Greg (portal) thinks "it is like my shelter. When I am bored, I also go there".
2) Social Relationship The way users in online communities manage their interaction and relationship with other users is a primary concern for all participants. Several factors were mentioned by participants: self-disclosure, desire, group norms, deviant behaviors, and group activities.
3) Self-Development Twelve participants mentioned how they utilize online communities for their self-development. One common comment is about how learning from others’ experiences broadens participants’ horizon and “turn others' experience into your own” (Marion, e-commerce). Three factors were identified: ideal online self, achievement, and sense of belonging.
Self- disclosure. Five participants pointed out that they like to talk to people in online communities because the text-based virtual environment “takes off the pressure of simultaneous conversation. If you are not happy, you simply turn off” (Elian, blog). The internet gives participants a venue to share what’s on their mind freely. Eight of them said they feel comfortable to confide in others from the online community. It is partly because “I feel people there share the same interests and goals as I do, so I can talk to them freely” (Lauren, portal).
Ideal online self. Half of the participants maintain an ideal image of who they are online. They would voluntarily help others to show their capability and knowledge. "I like to be an expert to help others" (Eyan, blog). They also provide personal experiences so that others can learn from them. Being able to maintain a positive self-image makes participants feel good and continues their participation. Achievement. Eighteen participants discussed how they have achieved something during their participation in the online community. Twelve of the participants feel excited and extremely happy about being able to obtain rare and urgent information or gain expertise. Lenny (e-commerce) was able to "find rare collectibles (he had) been looking for a long time". Achievement also takes shape in receiving recognition. Victor (portal) described a kind of online recognition. "The site has different ranks for membership. If you ask questions, you get points deducted. When you answer questions, you earn points. You are ranked based on the points you have. More points give you more freedom to do what you want at the site. We all want to get the highest points.”
Group norms. Group norms refer to official and unofficial rules and regulations an online community poses. All of the participants agreed that it is important to have very clearly stated rules to make sure members conduct themselves appropriately. Due to the fluid nature of internet, it is observed that some people would let go of common courtesy. “Some people are very rude in their responses, especially when they disagree with the original message. I don't like that" (Larry, ecommerce). Half of the participants expressed strong opinions about the basic mannerism. Half of the participants have low tolerance of norm-breaking behaviors. Fourteen of the participants stressed the importance to have a strong leadership in order to make sure the online community runs well. Sean (topic-specific) thinks that "an active leader should always post things on the site. This makes people establish a high degree of trust and commitment". The leadership should also establish clear rules and a system to regulate behaviors.
Sense of belonging. Eight participants described a sense of togetherness among members of their communities. Christina (blog) said “I got to know a lot of people…We would go to someone's house for New Year's Eve. We became very close friends”. Participants feel satisfied when finding people they can share common interests and thoughts. Emotional supports from members are also commonly described. Larry (ecommerce) said when he felt down, other members would give him encouragement to show “they care about me”.
Group activities. Another way users think about active participation is to see if there are online and offline activities going on and if participants attend those activities. Twenty participants enjoy having periodical online and offline activities to enhance their experiences with the online community. There are also activities held by the service provider. These activities either add surprises and excitement to users’ online experiences or strengthen their ties with the online community.
4) Technical Support When participants comment on the technical aspect of an online community, they stressed the importance of site management, usability and integrated service. Site management. Site management for participants includes regulating the online community and customer services provided by service providers. Twenty four participants agreed that site management has a great impact on their desire to come to the online community. Lack of management such as “getting junk mails” (Greg, portal), “becoming too commercialized” (Jasmine, e-commerce) can stop users to keep participate in that online community. Four
Desire. Desire refers to users’ desire to talk to people and to log into the online community. Twenty-two participants indicate their desire to log in everyday to read blogs or get new updates. Seven participants explicitly stated they enjoyed visiting the online community. Enjoyment comes from interaction with others, like "everyone is friendly and I am happy there" (Greg, portal). It can also come from
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participants specifically indicated customer service as an influence of their decisions to go back to the site. Susan (ecommerce) gave an example. "I filed complaints against a seller. He didn't send the product I bought but the site didn't deal with it. So I don't go there to buy things now".
that the ability to get rich information for free or for a small fee was what drew them to join online communities. The second most important factor is also social needs. Getting to know new friends is important for them. In terms of participation, merits of content is the most important factor. Participants care about good quality of information they get, quick update of information and massive flow of members and information. Sean gave an explicit statement: “If the service of the site is not all that great but you can always get rich and updated information, people will still participate”. To be able to obtain thorough and detailed content also satisfies participants. Most participants check other sources to make sure they would not be cheated. The second most important factor is self-development. Since participants in topic-specific community are sensitive to the information presented in the community, they also try hard to maintain a positive self-image by providing good information.
Usability. All participants commented on usability issues. The common features participants wanted included a simple and clean interface design, easy to find function buttons such as log in and confirm buttons, easy to use/understand functions, no pop-up advertisements, and good search function. Twenty participants said they do not care about the color, flash or animations that make the site look fancy. They want something easy to use. However, the usability issues participants complained about did not stop them from participating in those communities. Integrated services. Websites such as yahoo and msn are very popular among participants. Eleven participants explicitly explained it is because they have integrated services on the same site. Users only need to log in once and they can access their e-mail, online communities, photos, instant messenger…etc. This kind of one-stop service attracts participants’ to participate in online communities.
The third most important factor is social relationships. To make sure everyone has positive experiences, participants in topic-specific community are very conscious about keeping civil tone, following agreed rules, supporting good leadership, and punish unacceptable behaviors. Besides relying on the leadership to ensure the smooth day to day operation of online discussions, participants also mention another effective way to maintain group norm. Participants themselves would monitor socially inappropriate behaviors. "Some members act like the police. They will find out the person who violated the rules and announced to everyone" (Carl). The fourth factor, technical support is not really important for topic-specific community.
All of the above were critical factors that influence users’ experiences of online communities from users’ perspective based on interviews. The next section will discuss how users in each type of online community place different emphasis on those factors. D. Community Type v.s. User’s Experiences 1) E-commerce Community For participants in e-commerce community, the most important factor influencing their decision of joining the online community is promotional information. Like Larry, he became interested in the site because "there was this great commercial that made me curious". Several participants mentioned they became users of the community because of their friends’ referral. The second most important factor is social needs. Purposive and entertainment needs seems to be equally relatively unimportant for these users.
3) Blog Community All of the 4 primary motivating factors seem to be equally important for participants in the blog community. In terms of participation, all factors seem to have similar impact on users. In terms of self-development, participants pay a lot of attention to the self-identity constructed through their blogs. Participants made a lot of remarks about the technical aspect of the site. One possible reason is that the site Wretch is always overflowed with members. Social relationship is also important to participants. One interesting finding about self-disclosure is that some participants are ambivalent about their online disclosure. They want to keep their privacy but at the same time want to show people who they are or what they are up to. Elian described her feeling: “I like having a blog--like my baby. I go there to add something everyday. I partially want people to see it and at the same time don't really want too many people to see it ". Participants don’t seem to concern about the quality and quantity of information they can see from blogs. Whether information were constantly updated is not important either. Also, participants in blog community did not mention group norms at all.
Participants in e-commerce community care the most about technical support. The second most important requirement is merits of content. Two of them indicated that they “will continue to visit it as far as there are a lot of people participating in it" (Marion). They also like fast response. Social relationships and self-development were not the main requirements for users. There were only 2 comments relating to those 2 factors respectively. Ideal online self (selfdevelopment) and group norms (social relationship) were not mentioned at all. 2) Topic-Specific Community Participants in topic-specific community are motivated by purposive needs more than other factors. All participants stated that they can get information more quickly through their online communities than other means. They also mentioned
4) Portal community Participants join portal community mainly because they want to look for information (purposive needs). They feel that getting information through discussion within the online
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community is more efficient than a random search. Entertainment value is the second most important motivating factor. Participants join those online community to “kill time” (Victor) or “chat with people” (Shannon).
[3]
For participants in portal community, social relationship is the most important requirement. Offline activities are also very important. Don said: "We often go out to get a drink or have an outing. For big event, we went on a tour. "
[5]
[4]
[6]
The second most important requirement is technical support. What’s unique about technical support for this group is that participants want to have periodically updated new functions. Vivian pointed out that this site she likes because it gives novelty by “provide new functions but not in a too regular basis, so it won't make you feel annoying to have to learn new things too often". Some participants desire to be able to personalize their webpage/interface. Self-development and merits of content were both ranked as the least important requirement. I.
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
CONCLUSION
[11]
The goal of the current study is to gain deep understanding of users’ experiences and preferences in online communities. Participants in this study place great values in involving in the most populated online communities, in receiving fast responses and updates, in earning recognition and in obtaining rare information. They would quit going to an online community if the above goals cannot be reached but not due to technical problems. Existing literature [17] argue that good usability can provide solutions for sociability problems. The emphasis is to improve usability issues. Findings from the current research found otherwise. Taiwanese users would continue to participant in an online community that has poor usability as far as they can get what they want.
[12] [13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
Contrary to existing literature [4], it is discovered that group identity is not linked to continuous participation in an online community. Although sense of belonging is important for users, the attachment is with the people instead of the service provider/site. The current study also illustrated that users of different types of online communities have different kind of needs and requirements. Site managers should pay attention to this type of differences in order to attract users.
[17] [18]
[19]
In sum, existing framework does not necessarily have the explanatory power for users in different communities. Further research can use factors found in this study to investigate criteria for a successful online community [17]. It is also worthwhile to employ quantitative measures to test factors found in this study.
[20]
[21]
[22]
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