[1] T. Erickson and W. A. Kellogg, “Social translucence: an approach to designing systems that support social processes,” ACM Trans. Comput. Interact., vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 59–83, 2000.
[2] J. Donath and F. Viégas, “The chat circles series,” Proc. Conf. Des. Interact. Syst. Process. Pract. methods, Tech. – DIS ’02, p. 359, 2002.
Human beings are social animals. The importance of communication in us being a social animal is vital. We use speech as a mode through which information about our world and ourselves, construct agreed together myths and legends to create shared realities and even use it to warn one another. But, in the recent years, this physical phenomenon is increasingly being substituted by the virtual equivalent. These virtual tools, unlike the physical equivalent are crude in nature. How can one create a tool that is not crude and is as functional as physical speech? This is the question [1] is trying to tackle.
[1] firstly defines the term social translucency. It identifies that visibility, awareness and accountability are the building blocks of social interaction. It also identifies how naturally constraints come into picture and the importance of shared understanding of these constraints. The author then goes on to describe various systems that facilitate these functionality.
The privacy concerns associated with a system like babble is warranted. But could you bring in the notion of privacy in such systems and implement them? One could enable functionality through which one can peruse through another’s post history or go into circles anonymously. But how do you prevent misuse of these features. One could create social pressure by notifying users on who viewed their profile like in the case of Linkedin or have viewed their post history.
Given the need for “windows” and not “walls” in digital ecosystems, would require the transportation of data that constitutes as social information along with the actual information. Although such a system is important would such a bandwidth heavy requirement create barriers to users who do not have access to them? Although, internet access and speed is improving, the transplant to a fully digital world will only take place when the universal access to broadband becomes reality.
Mimetic platforms could be reality through the use of AR/VR technology. Given how the average compute power especially mobile devices are increasing rapidly, barriers are being removed to enter into the market with such “mimetic” platform. How you integrate such functionalities, giving users an actual benefit in being in your platform would determine the success of such a platforms.
It’s an interesting how rare “abstract systems” are in the wild? What could be the reason behind it? One of the reason could be the upfront cost associated with learning the mechanics of the system.
Paper [2] is concerned with the process of designing a system which is legible and engaging. It progresses from a barebones system to more feature laden system giving the reason for each functional upgrade. The “socially translucent” systems [2] builds are Chat Circles, Chat Circles II, Talking in Circles, and Tele-Directions.
Given how systems like chat circles work, how can you accommodate for people having multiple accounts or online personas?
The chat circles could also show users, groups having discussions on similar topics extending the functionality of the “hearing range”. These groups may be located far away geographically and the topics may be found in real time using state of the art NLP systems.
Given the information from [1] and [2] trying to force online communication channels to mimic how physical communication works, one could also argue if such a push is needed? I believe a hybrid of the current system with a more social translucent feature is what is necessary. Being able use the “legacy” mode would be one way to move forward. Online communication should be given the space to let it evolve naturally like how physical conversations have.
Given, how many people we interact with online vs how many you actually have a conversation with offline, it is necessary different people be put in different “circles” accommodating for pressure to put people you wouldn’t normally want in your innermost one. Such a tiered approach, although not new, could help address the elephant in the room i.e. the privacy issue associated with online social communication platforms.
