In this paper, we introduce Community Organizer, a system designed to support network communities by providing spatial representations of community members and communication exchanged among these members. This spatial representation reflects the closeness of interests and concerns among them. We conducted an experiment with two different versions of the software. One version offered meaningful spatial representation while the other version did not. Experiment results indicate the eflectiveness of the proposed spatial representation. The subjects who used the software providing the spatial representations felt a greater sense of "community, " enjoyed using the software more, and actively used it longer than subjects in the control condition.
This study examines the effects of interface adaptation on user performance in HCI and CMC. No studies to date have explored the psychological effects of a combination of software performance monitoring and adaptation. This combination is the focus of the present study. Two competing possible effects of adaptive interfaces are presented: 1) Social facilitation, according to which users with high task confidence should perform better, and users with low task confidence should perform less well because their performance is monitored by the interface; and 2) "choking", according to which users with high task confidence should perform less well, and users with low task confidence should perform better because the interface adapts to their performance. A 2 (adaptive vs. non-adaptive) x 2 (high user task confidence vs. low task confidence) x 2 (HCI vs. CMC) laboratory experiment was conducted. Results indicate that for CMC, the social facilitation explanation holds true, while results for HCI were consistent with the "choking" explanation. Implications for the theory and design of adaptive interfaces are discussed.
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