Themes & Memes

Since the Social Computing Group’s founding in 1998 we’ve produced a large body of work. In this section, we attempt a thematic organization of our activities. You won’t find everything here, but you will find what we regard as the dominant memes in our work.

Computer-Mediated Communication

One of the earliest foci of the Social Computing Group was designing and studying systems for supporting online conversation. This area of work includes the design and study of the Babble system, and its web-based successor, Loops, as well as studies of other systems. This is also closely tied to the social proxy work.

Erickson, T, Halverson, C. A., and Kellogg, W. A. Figuring Out How to Figure Out: Supporting Expertise Sharing in Online Systems. Resources, Co-Evolution and Artifacts: Theory in CSCW, pp. 95-144. Springer, London, 2008.

Erickson, T., Kellogg, W. A., Laff, M., Sussman, J. Wolf, T. V., Halverson, C. A., Edwards, D. A. A Persistent Chat Space for Work Groups: The Design, Evaluation and Deployment of Loops. The Proceedings of DIS 2006. New York: ACM Press, 2006.

Weisz, J. D., Erickson, T., and Kellogg, W.A. Broadcast Synchronous Messaging: The Use of ICT. The Proceedings of CHI 2006. New York: ACM Press, 2006.

Halverson, C.,A., Erickson, T., and Sussman, J. What Counts as Success? Punctuated Patterns of Use in a Persistent Chat Environment . The Proceedings of GROUP 2003. New York : ACM Press, 2003.

Bradner, E., Kellogg, W.A., & Erickson, T. The Adoption and Use of Babble: A Field Study of Chat in the Workplace. The Proceedings of the European Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW ’99) conference. Kluwer Academic Publishers,1999.

Erickson, T., Smith, D. N., Kellogg, W. A., Laff, M. R., Richards, J. T., and Bradner, E. “Socially Translucent Systems: Social Proxies, Persistent Conversation, and the Design of ‘Babble.’” In Human Factors in Computing Systems: The Proceedings of CHI ’99. ACM Press, 1999.

Erickson, T. “Rhyme and Punishment: The Creation and Enforcement of Conventions in an On-Line Participatory Limerick Genre.” In the Proceedings of the Thirty-Second Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science. (ed. J. F. Nunamaker, Jr. R. H. Sprague, Jr.), January, 1999.

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Design

Most of our work involves design in one form or another. However the work featured here discusses design at a more general level, examining theory, method or practices.

Erickson, T. Socio-Technical Design. Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and Social Networking Systems (eds. B. Whitworth and A de Moor), pp 333-334. IGI Global, to appear, 2009.

Erickson, T. Five Lenses: Towards a Toolkit for Interaction Design. Theories and Practice in Interaction Design (ed. S. Bagnara, G. Crampton-Smith, G. and Salvendy.) Lawrence Erlbaum: April, 2006.

Wolf, T. V., Rode, J. A., Sussman, J., and Kellogg, W. A. Dispelling “design” as the black art of CHI. The Proceedings of CHI 2007. New York: ACM Press, 2006.

Erickson, T. and Kellogg, W. A. “Social Translucence: Using Minimalist Visualizations of Social Activity to Support Collective Interaction.” Designing Information Spaces: The Social Navigation Approach (eds. K. Höök, D. Benyon, and A. Munro). Springer, 2003., pp. 17-42.

Erickson, T. “Lingua Francas for Design: Sacred Places and Pattern Languages.” In The Proceedings of DIS 2000 (Brooklyn, NY, August 17-19, 2000). New York: ACM Press, 2000, pp 357-368.

Erickson, Thomas. Towards a Pattern Language for Interaction Design.. In Workplace Studies: Recovering Work Practice and Informing Systems Design. (ed. P. Luff, J. Hindmarsh, C. Heath). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 252-261.

Erickson, T. & Kellogg, W.A. “Social Translucence: An Approach to Designing Systems that Mesh with Social Processes.” In Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. Vol. 7, No. 1, pp 59-83. New York: ACM Press, 2000.

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Ethnography and Fieldwork

Fieldwork is a core part of our approach. While useful information can certainly be uncovered in the lab, nothing beats in-depth qualitative studies of the human use of computational systems (IOHO).

Erickson, T., Danis, C., Kellogg W. A., and Helander, M. E. Assistance: The Work Practices of Human Administrative Assistants and their Implications for IT and Organizations. The Proceedings of CSCW 2008. New York: ACM Press, 2008.

Ding, X., Erickson, T., Kellogg, W.A., Levy, S., Christensen, J.E., Sussman, J., Wolf, T.V. and Bennett, W.E. An Empirical Study of the Use of Visually Enhanced VoIP Audio Conferencing: The Case of IEAC. The Proceedings of CHI 2007. New York: ACM Press, 2007.

Weisz, J. D., Erickson, T., and Kellogg, W.A. Broadcast Synchronous Messaging: The Use of ICT. The Proceedings of CHI 2006. New York: ACM Press, 2006.

Halverson, C. A., Erickson, T., and Ackerman, M. S. Behind the Help Desk: Evolution of a Knowledge Management System in a Large Organization. The Proceedings of CSCW 2004. New York: ACM Press, 2004.

Halverson, C.,A., Erickson, T., and Sussman, J. What Counts as Success? Punctuated Patterns of Use in a Persistent Chat Environment . The Proceedings of GROUP 2003. New York : ACM Press, 2003.

Hudson, J., Christensen, J., Kellogg, W.A., and Erickson, T. (2002). “I’d be overwhelmed, but it’s just one more thing to do: Availability and interruption in research management.” In Human Factors in Computing Systems, the Proceedings of CHI 2002, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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Knowledge Management

Our work on knowledge management is closely tied to our work on online conversation. We are particularly interested in how knowledge is produced and disseminated in the course of every day work.

Halverson, C. A., Erickson, T., and Ackerman, M. S. Behind the Help Desk: Evolution of a Knowledge Management System in a Large Organization . The Proceedings of CSCW 2004. New York : ACM Press, 2004.

Ackerman, M.S. and Halverson, C. A.(April 2004) Organizational Memory as Objects, Processes, and Trajectories: An Examination of Organizational Memory in Use . Journal of CSCW. 13(2) pp 155-190.

Halverson , C.A. (Jan, 2004) “The Value of Persistence: A Study of the Creation, Ordering and Use of Conversation Archives by a Knowledge Worker “. HICSS 2004, Waikaloa , HI.

Thomas, J.C., Kellogg, W.A. and Erickson, T. “The Knowledge Management Puzzle: Human and Social Factors in Knowledge Management.” The IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4, 2001.

Erickson, T. and Kellogg, W. A. “Knowledge Communities: Online Environments for Supporting Knowledge Management and its Social Context.” Beyond Knowledge Management: Sharing Expertise. (eds. Ackerman, Mark, Volkmar Pipek, and Volker Wulf). Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, in press 2001. [Also available as a pdf.]

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Social Proxies

A social proxy is an abstract dynamic graphical representation that portrays socially salient information about the presence and activities of a group of people participating in an interaction. Social proxies originated in our work on online conversation, but have proved to apply to a wide range of situations. Also see the “Social Computing Theory” section.

Ding, X., Erickson, T., Kellogg, W.A., Levy, S., Christensen, J.E., Sussman, J., Wolf, T.V. and Bennett, W.E. An Empirical Study of the Use of Visually Enhanced VoIP Audio Conferencing: The Case of IEAC. The Proceedings of CHI 2007. New York: ACM Press, 2007.

Erickson, T., Huang, W., Danis, C., and Kellogg, W. A. A Social Proxy for Distributed Tasks: Design and Evaluation of a Working Prototype. The Proceedings of CHI 2004. New York : ACM Press, 2004.

Erickson, T. and Kellogg, W.A. Social Proxy. The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. Berkshire Publishing Group, LLC, 2004.

Erickson, T. “Designing Visualizations of Social Activity: Six Claims” The Proceedings of CHI 2003: Extended Abstracts. New York: ACM Press, 2003.

Erickson, T., Halverson, C., Kellogg, W. A., Laff, M. and Wolf, T. “Social Translucence: Designing Social Infrastructures that Make Collective Activity Visible.” Communications of the ACM (Special issue on Community, ed. J. Preece), Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 40-44, 2002.

Erickson, T. and Laff, M. “The Design of the ‘Babble’ Timeline: A Social Proxy for Visualizing Group Activity over Time.” The Proceedings of CHI 2001. ACM Press, 2001.

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Theory

Our work in social computing includes efforts to generate and use mid-level theoretical constructs that provide useful frameworks for designing and analyzing systems.

Erickson, T. ‘Social’ Systems: Designing Digital Systems that Support Social Intelligence. AI and Society.

Erickson, T. “Designing Visualizations of Social Activity: Six Claims” The Proceedings of CHI 2003: Extended Abstracts. New York: ACM Press, 2003.

Erickson, T. and Kellogg, W. A. “Social Translucence: Using Minimalist Visualizations of Social Activity to Support Collective Interaction.” Designing Information Spaces: The Social Navigation Approach (eds. K. Höök, D. Benyon, and A. Munro). Springer, 2003., pp. 17-42.

Halverson, C. Activity theory and distributed cognition: or What does CSCW need to do with theories? . Invited commentary for special issue of Journal of CSCW on intersection of Activity Theory and Distributed Cognition. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Vol. 11, No. 1. (1 March 2002), pp. 243-267.

Erickson, T. & Kellogg, W.A. “Social Translucence: An Approach to Designing Systems that Mesh with Social Processes.” In Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp 59-83. New York: ACM Press, 2000.

Bradner, E., Kellogg, W.A., & Erickson, T. The Adoption and Use of Babble: A Field Study of Chat in the Workplace. The Proceedings of the European Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW ’99) conference. Kluwer Academic Publishers,1999.

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Visualization

Visualization is another pervasive theme in our work. While social proxies have been the focus of our work, we’ve explored visualization in other ways as well.

Danis, C. M., Viegas, F. B., Wattenberg, M., and Kriss, J. 2008. Your place or mine?: visualization as a community component. In Proceedings of CHI 2008. ACM, New York, NY, 275-284.

Bellamy, R.K.E., Erickson, T., Fuller, B., Kellogg, W.A., Rosenbaum, R., Thomas, J.C., and Vetting Wolf, T. Seeing is Believing: Design Visualizations for Managing Risk and Compliance. IBM Systems Journal, 46:2, 207-218, 2007.

Ellis, J.B., Danis, C., Halverson, C.A., and Kellogg, W.A.. “Social Visualization in Software Development.” Proceedings of ACM CHI 2006 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 24-27, 2006.

Halverson, C.A., Ellis,  J.B., Danis, C., and Kellogg, W.A.. “Designing Task Visualizations to Support the Coordination of Work in Software Development.” Proceedings of CSCW 2006 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, November 4-8, 2006.

Ivanov, A., Erickson, T., Cyr, D. Plot-polling: Collaborative Knowledge Visualization for Online Discussions. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Information Visualization. IEEE Press, 2006.

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