University of Technology, Sydney
Networking Communities
2003 Autumn Semester
Subject Number : 32533
Group Project 3: Implementing a Networking Community – Coverpage
Group : / VirtualityStudent Name : / Danny Wu 0208 4022
Liz (Hui-ju) Lu 0112 4763
Mituri P. Sharma 0100 2195
Ai Ling Tay 9812 2132
(Milly) Jinzi Wu 0202 4166
Paper Title : / Implementing a Networking Community
Tutor : / Eduardo Chavez
Due Date : / Week 13 - 6June 2003
Weighting : / 30 %
Contents
1.Virtuality as a Client
1.1.Comparative Evaluation of the Individual Projects
1.1.1.Background and Overview of Potential Networking Community
1.1.2.Community Aims
1.2.Why Wine Community Proposal Was Selected?
1.3.Evaluation of Wine Community Implementation
2.Virtuality as a Designer
2.1.Approaches to Overseas Student Society Community
2.2.Basic Design of OSS
2.3.Implementation of OSS Community Environment
2.3.1.Bulletin Board
2.3.2.Instant Message
2.3.3.Email
2.3.4.Chat Rooms
2.3.5.Q&A Board
2.3.6.Search Tool
2.4.Modifications on OSS Design
2.5.Deviations from Existing Communities
3.Virtuality as a Researcher
3.1.Task Schedule
3.2.Communication Analysis
3.3.Communication and Evaluation Tools
3.4.Collaboration Modes
3.4.1.Subdivision of Tasks
4.Communication Transcripts
4.1.Virtuality Group Communication on UTSOnline
4.1.1.Archive for NC2003 Virtuality on May 14, 2003
4.1.2.Archive for NC2003 Virtuality on May 21, 2003
4.1.3.Archive for NC2003 Virtuality on May 26, 2003
4.1.4.Archive for NC2003 Virtuality on May 28, 2003
4.1.5.Archive for NC2003 Virtuality on Jun 4, 2003
4.1.6.File Exchange
4.1.7.Emails
4.2.Netraiders & Virtuality Communication
4.2.1.Archive for NC2003a Client Gp 2 Netraiders and Designer Gp 8 Virtuality on May 26, 2003
4.2.2.Discussion Board
4.2.3.Emails
4.3.Squirrel & Virtuality Communication
4.3.1.Archive for NC2003a Client Gp 8 Virtuality and Designer Gp 3 Squirrel on May 26, 2003
4.3.2.Discussion Board
4.3.3.Emails
1.Virtuality as a Client
1.1.Comparative Evaluation of the Individual Projects
There are five communities that were proposed in the group, which included the backpacker community, Kid Biz community, wine community, cosmetic guide club community and fashion community. Following are the criteria that were implemented in conducting the comparative evaluation:
1.1.1.Background and Overview of Potential Networking Community
Background information on the potential networking community that was selected was essential for the development of the new community. For this reason the background research on the particular community employed cannot be overlooked as the background information is crucial in assisting the designer to establish a better community for the needs of the society.
According to the project proposals, only few of us have conducted the required background research for the potential networking community. Danny Wu has implemented a comprehensive analysis on the current wine communities that are available for building a better wine community to solve the shortages that confront users in current online wine communities.
1.1.2.Community Aims
Every proposal in the group clearly identified the main purpose for the community itself and for the development of such networking communities. The purpose of each of the proposal was incorporated with the targeted users and stakeholders that might be involved in the community. The wine community proposal needs to further clarify the purpose; the fashion community’s purpose was not as clearly stated, instead it described the use of the community rather than the purpose, while the Kidz Biz community purpose is rather complicated.
1.1.2.1.Functionality
Numerous functionalities have been recommended in relation to the particular community. The proposed communities are enclosed with various general functions, which consist of synchronous and asynchronous tools for targeted users or stakeholders to communicate within the community.
The Kidz Biz even proposes voice chat within the community, which is a good idea to supplement the current users about the various functions of the community. On the other hand, this voice chat might be inappropriate, as it is too noisy to talk online and the message might not be clear due to the Internet message transfer as well as the slow pace to receive the messages, thus the technical constraints need to be carefully analyzed.
Email still remains at the forefront of synchronous communication as it caters for those who are reluctant to share their view or who lack online communication skills. This is a very important tool as the online community is still a new communication channel for Internet users, thus this email feature is very helpful for them to participate in the community. The cosmetic community is creative as it directs its target users to login for the community and enables more interactions within the community. Functionality from the fashion community composes some unnecessary functions such as Calender and Contribution; fundamentally these functions are not needed in the community. Essentially, most the proposals do not include the functionality’s of Contact Us, Frequently Ask Questions, Site map and Events.
1.1.2.2.Technology Requirements
Generally, the majority of proposals impose diverse sets of technology to support their community. HTML and Java scripts are the most common technologies that have been recommended in the group. Cosmetic guide community allows for live classroom and lots of pictures in the community, thus it entails technologies like Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Windows Media Player, Real Player and more. Although the fashion community may also contain model pictures it does not incorporate any necessary or needed technologies for supporting these particular features, thus, incomplete information for the functionality is provided.
In order to protect the users and privacy of the users within the community, SSL is also used as one of the technologies in the cosmetic community and fashion community. XML is the most current application technology in the virtual environment due to its flexibility and various standards that are able to meet the different demands from the Internet world. As a result, the wine community proposal promotes the XML scripts to be used for designing the web site.
1.1.2.3.Sociability and Cultural Aspects
In regards to the social and cultural aspects, the fashion community and cosmetic guide community have acknowledged more social and cultural issues. Furthermore, the backpacker community does take into account broad social issues that are incurring in the virtual environment. However, the backpacker community fails to indicate main issues that need to be highlighted and its ideas about the cultural issues are too general. The cosmetic community and the wine recognize potential future updates to the community. These future updates of the information and technology incorporations should be integrated in all communities to maintain revisits from loyal users within the community.
Privacy and security issues are another social aspect of communities, where web developers should assure the privacy of users when they are online; this issue has been highlighted in the backpacker community and wine community.
1.1.2.4.Project Planning
The Wine community has proposed a useful estimated schedule for potential wine users and incorporated assigned roles for each component in each phase (i.e. planning phase, design phase, procurement phase, development phase and testing phase) that make the implementation work smoothly. Furthermore, it risks and constraints, budget constraints, quality plan and approach are also incorporated for ensuring the project is on track, while at the same time reducing deficiencies. The backpacker community and fashion community do not have a detailed and proper plan for assisting the designer to work on their community.
1.1.2.5.Case study,Data Collection and Analysis
Wine community proposal has conducted the case study and strategy for data collection and analysis thoroughly. For instance, it proposes content analysis should be performed on chat logs from the chat room.
1.2.Why Wine Community Proposal Was Selected?
This proposal has been selected due to containing sufficient information for implementation. Specifically, this proposal comprises almost all general web site functions that make it an efficient community to diverse groups of users. The general web site functions within the community include forums, chat rooms, polls, search engines and more.
Moreover, the proposal also supplies Squirrel’s with a detailed design, testing and implementing schedule together with assigned roles, which can speed up the community implementation, and help to combat redundant difficulties such as communication problems and group conflict dilemmas. Most importantly, this proposal has been developed based on the proper analysis of current existing online wine communities. This analysis is an essential fact for substantiating the new wine community implementation.
1.3.Evaluation of Wine Community Implementation
Following is the first version of the wine community implementation; the prototype looks very good, attractive and is eye-catching to the incoming users. Squirrel has used sharp colour for the all the functionality links and the layout is well integrated with the whole interface of the prototype. In addition, designer has also made use of some attractive pictures and features to distinguish itself from other wine communities.
However, this prototype contains some flaws, and amendments need to be made and have been communicated to Squirrel with the following information:
- The size of the text for all the functions are too small and is quite hard to read
- The text used is not attractive and is uncomfortable for potential users
- Spelling mistake like “Sit Map” exist, and should be changed to “Site Map”
- Duplication of functionalities within the prototype; functions from the navigation bar at the top already exist in the left hand side of the prototype
- Functions in the left hand side are not arranged in order. For example, Home Page function should be allocated at the very beginning of the navigation bar, instead it is allocated at the end.
- The whole design captures only two-thirds of the screen, where users are likely to prefer full screen to assist in reading comfort.
- The introduction paragraph to the community is not well justified
- Contact Us, Privacy policy and a Disclaimer statement are absent.
Virtuality has provided ideas to Squirrel on how to improve some of the unsatisfied elements and have reminded them to include the member registration page and Help functions in the prototype. These suggestions are based upon Virtuality’s research on the present “glut” of what is missing in online wine communities. Thus, the purpose of the registration page is to facilitate potential future users forums and newsletter subscriptions, while Help is needed to inform users of software requirements for visiting the Virtual Tour as well as installation instructions for this particular software.
Following is the final version of the implementation for wine community:
As compare to the previous version, this prototype looks better in terms of context. The context comprises text for those functions can be clearly identify and easier to read. But as we navigating around the site, there are many issues being discovered, such as:
1.3.1.Inconsistency
The “All Rights Reserved” statement was highlighted with different colours, which is very obvious to the users. Besides, links also does not match titles of the pages to which they refer. These problems incur in the Virtual Tour function and the Forum function within the web site, where the page does not specify Virtual Tour or Forum when user click through, in fact it stated the “Sorry, The Page You requested was not found”. This will affects users’ reliability and credibility towards this community and contents within the web site.
1.3.2.Functionality
All functionality is clearly labelled. But as we navigating around, we discovered that there are numerous of sublinks within some functions are not operating. For example, Read More under the Latest News function and Click Here under Events function are not readily for users. Functions such as Contact Us, Disclaimer Statement and Links to complementary products of wine still left out by the designers. Ultimately, these functions are very essential for users to revisit the site and generate site traffic. In spite of this, function like Frequently Ask Questions (FAQ) is another deficiency from the designer, where it only consists of questions with no answers, which is fail to achieve the objective of informing users what happening in the web site. In addition, the designer also left the unfinished questions in FAQ that may frustrate users and give an unprofessional impression.
1.3.3.Navigation
There is no clear indication to the users in regarding their current location in the site, which causing users confuse about where they are in the web site when they navigate. Even though, breadcrumbs and site map are both designing in the web site, there are not really functions as we expected. For example, breadcrumbs that are appear in the Newsletter function, but that is not specifically designed for wine community.
Site Map is available, but the context and contents within are very messy and information is not arranged accordingly. The purpose of Site Map is to provide an overview picture to users in relation to this wine community and it also should be able to present a completely alternative method of navigating the site to the user; unfortunately this Site Map is causing more confusion to users due to the information are not properly arranged. Within the Site Map, there are also many incomplete links that may cause user-unfriendly. Furthermore, an easy-to-use Search function is available, but the Search function is not operating well. In addition to that, this Search function is not facilitating the information search within the Wine community. Generally, this site does not supports the user’s workflow and have the high propensity for creating users dissatisfaction.
In conclusion, designer has done a very good job on designing the home page and the registration function, but problems emerge as users navigating into the website.
2.Virtuality as a Designer
As a Designer Group 08 Virtuality is designing Group 02 Netraiders’s Overseas Student Society proposal selected by their group.
2.1.Approaches to Overseas Student Society Community
The Overseas Student Society (OSS) is a virtual community created along with a combination of functions to meet the requirements and needs of international students. Since the international students community often breaks up into different small racial groups and the OSS would like to join these small components together to form a strong networking community for information sharing and mutual support. Therefore, the targeted audiences of OSS are mainly international students of University of Technology Sydney, as well, the recreational officer of the University.
The main point for designing and implementing this online community is to follow the proposal from our client group. Recreational functions are offered on the community such as Annual Dinner, Barbecue, Disco, Harbor Cruise, and Karaoke Competition during the year. Set up study groups functions and provide study assist the international students when requested.OSS' website contains announcements of current events/functions and some other features to aid students including the buying/selling of old textbooks, furniture, job search and placement of rent advertisement.
2.2.Basic Design of OSS
Before constructing the basic community design with the software, an outline of what the site is going to look like is hand drawn. After that the software FrontPage is used to build up the basic web design. For the very first prototype, a very basic design is made with HTML, which has no buttons linked to the database. For example, the accommodation and job searches are just the buttons without the supporting from the community database. The reason behind is that if the whole design scheme does not meet the client group requirements, it will be a waste of time to do all the coding part as everything needs to be changed. So there are only limited technologies used for the basic design.
For the image editing, the software Ulead Photoshop is used. Since this software has a lot of functions and features to create graphics that will deliver its purpose, all the images on the OOS community are applied Ulead Photoshop, especially the design of OOS community’s logo.
2.3.Implementation of OSS Community Environment
In the proposal, the communication issues are the first thing considered by the client group. Therefore the efficiency of the information flow from the virtual community to the users becomes an important criterion. Some communication tools are required, such as bulletin board, instant message, email, chat rooms, Q&A board, and some search tools.
2.3.1.Bulletin Board
The committee of OSScan post the official announcements of particular events/functions on it.In OSS announcement section, latest events of the society can be found, such as international dinner, band and festival, international ball, and Barbeque. While the registered members can reply or post anything that they concern of on bulletin board.