Thinking about community design

Several design practices captured my attention when I first started thinking about the software design and learning communities. Activity theory was appealing for the holistic approach to analysing complex interactions by focusing on the structure and integration of interrelated elements of the system: the object, mediating artefacts (tools), rules, community, and division of labour (Bakardjieva, 1998; Cole, 1993; Currie & Campos, 1999; Nardi, 1996).  Participatory and situated design (Bodker, 1991; Schuler & Namioka, 1993) provided a strong rationale for direct and continuous interaction with members of the workplace or community under study. I was also intrigued by the plethora of examples of poor design and the body of literature offering explanations for design failures (Norman, 1988, 1990).

The literature provides useful frameworks for thinking about online communities in different ways, and how to go about planning (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). The writings that influenced me early on emphasized community as a process rather than a single instance or even iterations of design, and the importance of attending to both sociability and usability (Preece, 2000). I also appreciated the stories emerging from communities that were dealing with cutting edge technologies, such as Tapped In (Tapped In), where enabling as many teachers as possible to participate meant staying “one step ahead” (Schlager, Fusco, & Schank, 1998, para. 3).  More recently, a new label has emerged to describe the work of a community coordinator in relation to the selections and use of technologies and how communities and technologies shape each other (Wenger, White, Smith, & Rowe, 2005).

Technology stewards are people with enough experience of the workings of a community to understand its technology needs, and enough experience with technology to take leadership in addressing those needs. Stewardship typically includes selecting and configuring technology, as well as supporting its use in the practice of the community (Smith, 2006 para. 2).

This is a role I can relate to very much. If I have in fact earned the title, it’s one I’ll always strive to live up to.

In many ways I feel as though I’ve approached this thing backwards. So much of what I have learned about how to go about designing an online community comes from my own participation in SCoPE and other online communities over the past 8 years – watching, listening, experimenting, and reflecting, then lining up my assumptions against published guidelines and advice from experts. Various toolkits and checklists such as the Template for Success: 15 Tips for a Virtual Community of Practice Leader (Kimball & Ladd, 2004), the Community of Practice Design Guide (Cambride, Kaplan, & Suter, 2005), and Online Community Builder's Purpose Checklist (White, n.d.) have been valuable if not only to reaffirm that I’m on the right track. Workshops, meetings, events, and community experiences that have allowed me to engage in deeper dialogue and reflection with others who share my passion for online community have given me ideas and insights that cannot be gleamed from literature.

This report documents the activities and observations that have informed the design of the SCoPE online community. It provides a window onto my experiences as a community coordinator and the practices and decisions that both enrich and delay progress as SCoPE evolves. Hopefully this account is a first step in satisfying the need to “explore ways of talking about technology from a community perspective, rather than the perspective of technology creators or enthusiasts alone” (Smith, 2006, para. 5).