Product Description

The purpose of the book is to set up a framework for discussions on social and technical issues of online communities. Designing usability and supporting sociability lays a solid foundation on which online communities can grow and thrive. Intended for both students and computer professionals, the book addresses the development of new online communities as well as the improvement of existing ones. It is divided into two parts – Getting Acquainted with Online Communities and Developing Online Communities – along with a preface and a concluding chapter which explores the future of online communities. For sample chapters and other resources, please check out the web site for the book at www.ifsm.umbc.edu/onlinecommunities.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #425085 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
If the phrase "planned community" makes you think of terrible homogenous suburbs, take another look at the Internet. Though there are unplanned aspects and emergent behaviours, for the most part every detail has been designed by someone who thought they knew what they were doing. Can we do better? Human-computer interactions expert Jenny Preece takes apart our preconceptions and suggests new ways to improve our virtual realities in Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Sociability. Part sociological review, part design manual, the book is dry enough to appeal to techies and academics while still humanistic enough to touch the organisers and activists who will put her ideas further into action.

Beginning with basic concepts of community and online activities, Preece moves on to survey research on the use of virtual spaces and then focuses on techniques to design and build optimal cybervillages for given needs and people. Using plenty of examples and case studies from actual Web sites and other electronic communities, she sheds light on tools that work to make them sustainable. Whether the current generation of e-planners will heed her words--and whether they can create something liveable out of the weird suburb/wilderness hybrid we have now--will be key to determining how 21st-century humans live, work and communicate. --Rob Lightner

Review
"provides a good balance between theory and practise"   (Software Focus, December 2001)

"I like the slightly zany drawings"  "People will say I wish I′d had this book before now"."   (Computer & Education, No. 36, 2001)

"…an excellent book…my best recommendations…" (Jnl of Computing and Information Technology, March 2003)

Review
"provides a good balance between theory and practise"
(Software Focus, December 2001)

"I like the slightly zany drawings"
"People will say I wish I′d had this book before now"."
(Computer & Education, No. 36, 2001)

"…an excellent book…my best recommendations…" (Jnl of Computing and Information Technology, March 2003)

Customer Reviews

Make the Internet work for you
I found this book a great combination of concepts and practical ideas that I know will have a great impact on my work as an online teacher and researcher. I especially appreciate the absolute focus on the interaction between people and how to achieve it (as opposed to person:computer). To me, it puts as all at the heart of what the Internet IS and what it will be. There's something for everyone from commercial to not-for-profit contexts of all kinds. Gilly Salmon.

Great for designers, students and researchers.
In Online Communities, Jenny Preece offers an excellent framework for considering how to design, work in, play in or just muse about the new world of communities "out there" on the internet. There are many people teaching and learning in this area now - the book is most timely and offers ideas for designers and researchers and a valuable approach to teaching and learning. Her section on community-centred development is a key part of the book along with her emphasis on usability and sociability. These concepts, especially that of sociability, offer her continuing research results to beginners and longer-term researchers and developers. The book is comprehensive in the way it covers many important topics. It is valuable for designers and developers and also offers considerable resource material though its web site. Use it! I already use Jenny Preece's book (written with others) on Human-Computer Interaction for teaching that subject. Her new book extends her support for the design and academic community in a significant way.

Fantastic!
I am currently researching Virtual Communities for my Dissertation at Brookes University, Oxford - UK. I was lucky enough to be recommended this book by a tutor of mine, and have found it incredibly useful in providing a detailed overview of many types of virtual community. As part of my research I am planning to move a real life business community online, and found this book invaluable. I have been lucky enough to read a great deal of the authors works and other papers and books she has published.

This book encompasses so many aspects of communities, I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in social sciences, technology or the world of business.