Groupware: some issues and experiences
Communications of the ACM
The semiotic engineering of user interface languages
International Journal of Man-Machine Studies
Social activity indicators: interface components for CSCW systems
Proceedings of the 8th annual ACM symposium on User interface and software technology
New community networks: wired for change
New community networks: wired for change
Where the action is: the foundations of embodied interaction
Where the action is: the foundations of embodied interaction
Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Socialbilty
Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Socialbilty
A semiotic engineering approach to HCI
CHI '01 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Virtual team awareness and groupware support: an evaluation of the teamSCOPE system
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies - Special issue on Awareness and the WWW
The intellectual challenge of CSCW: the gap between social requirements and technical feasibility
Human-Computer Interaction
The semiotic inspection method
IHC '06 Proceedings of VII Brazilian symposium on Human factors in computing systems
Online communities administration: defining tools for different profiles
INTERACT'07 Proceedings of the 11th IFIP TC 13 international conference on Human-computer interaction - Volume Part II
Applicability of the semiotic inspection method: a systematic literature review
Proceedings of the 10th Brazilian Symposium on on Human Factors in Computing Systems and the 5th Latin American Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
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In this paper, we analyze some mismatches between what is offered by light-weight technologies that support online communities and the dreams and fears of a group of 20 potential users of such technologies. In our study, members of an academic community that does not have an online extension answered an open-ended questionnaire. The answers revealed some of their expectations about group applications. With these expectations in mind, we carried out a semiotic inspection of three popular applications. Within the specific range of topics covered in the study, our findings show three important factors that seem to determine the distance between what they expect and what they get: (a) technological resources are limited, but this can be substantially improved with broad band technologies; (b) some design decisions are questionable, and should be revised; and (c) online groups must all be structured and governed by some strict rules, regardless of how informal and loose they might be offline. Factor (c), in particular, seems to be tied to deeper scientific issues involved in the inherent social-technical gap of computer technologies for groups.