Summary
The paper “Social Translucence: An Approach to Designing Systems that Support Social Processes” focuses on designing systems that are more engaging and productive to promote communication and collaboration among large groups of people online. It mentions how current systems impose a barrier between users such that it leaves room for second guessing what is being said between users. The paper states that understanding how to better current designs is important for the development of more realistic and immersive experiences similar to physical interactions.
The paper “The Chat Circles Series” discusses the popularity of text-based chatting as well as some areas that could be improved. It centers around a collections of graphical chat programs with the purpose of improving socials interactions and making communication more expressive. Each individual program in the collection has its own variation and involvement on social interaction. The paper states that the use of a basic and open representation of the user and the environment contributes to the development of alternative to current systems.
Reflection
I agree and can relate to how it can sometimes be difficult to figure out the intent of a person’s message through only text. It is especially difficult if there is not much context to the conversation or if the person is a stranger. However, it has become easier with emojis, stickers, and GIFs/images. Text messaging has definitely improve since the papers were published. Some of the problems discussed in the papers have been addressed. For example, many platforms indicate whenever someone is typing. I thought some of the programs in the paper “The Chat Circles Series” were interesting. However, I think a lot of them are unnecessary or not practical since it would increase the learning curve. I believe that a good text message app should be simple (as in focus on text), but have enough features to make the conversation engaging and expressive. In my opinion, the shapes and other changes allowed for even more interpretation for the ordinary user.
Questions
- Do certain words or phrases make a text message harder or easier to interpret the intent of the writer?
- Does text messaging on certain platforms (such as Snapchat vs email) help interpret messages?
- Does text messaging on different devices (such as PC vs mobile) affect the way messages are interpreted.
- What kind of text-based messaging (text messaging, email, etc.) is more productive?
- Is it possible for text messaging to ever be the same as a physical person-to-person conversation?
