Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Evaluation a Cross-Cultural Children's Online Book Community: Sociability, Usability, and Cultural Exchange (15 May 2005) In creating a successful online community, there are two critical components: sociability and usability (Preece, 2000). Sociability is the meaningfulness or quality of the interaction between community members. Individuals come together and form communities—both physical and virtual—for a variety of reasons; among others, they may want sympathy, need answers to questions and concerns, or have a place of origin, culture, or hobby in common (Maloney-Krichmar & Preece, 2005; Preece 1999). If these communities enable them to make significant connections, people maintain their membership within the group. However, key to creating meaningful interactions is the ability to communicate well and, when dealing with online communities of children, this is a challenge. Kids ages 7-11, for whom the ICDLCommunities is geared, are still in their developmental stages and have limited linguistic and communicative abilities. They are also just learning to socialize and may not be as attuned to the needs and emotions of others (Preece, 1999). Thus, in evaluating the sociability of the system, the standards of quality that are known to be applicable to many adults may need to be reassessed for children. In online communities, sociability is mediated by technology. The usability of a computer system determines how efficiently and effectively members can communicate and interact with each other. The ideal interface would: enable users to learn to maneuver through it easily, be responsive (i.e., not take a long time in uploading or downloading), and support error-free interactions (Preece et al., 2002). In supporting children’s online communities, these factors, as well as their limited motor, technical, and critical thinking skills, have to be taken into account. Thus, designers have to consider the difficulty kids have with using keyboards and mice, their lack of exposure to technology and technical vocabulary, and their limited ability to process or navigate complex instructions or structures. In addition, they have to keep in mind the children’s safety (“Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998”) while in this online environment. Article URL: ftp://ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/hcil/Reports-Abstracts-Bibliography/2005-15html/2005-15.htm Read 62 more articles from University Of Maryland sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: InterSon: Interactive Sonification for Geo-referenced Data Exploration for the Vision Impaired     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy