Exploring personality-targeted UI design in online social participation systems

Abstract

We present a theoretical foundation and empirical findings demonstrating the effectiveness of personality-targeted design. Much like a medical treatment applied to a person based on his specific genetic profile, we argue that theorydriven, personality-targeted UI design can be more effective than design applied to the entire population. The empirical exploration focused on two settings, two populations and two personality traits: Study 1 shows that users' extroversion level moderates the relationship between the UI cue of audience size and users' contribution. Study 2 demonstrates that the effectiveness of social anchors in encouraging online contributions depends on users' level of emotional stability. Taken together, the findings demonstrate the potential and robustness of the interactionist approach to UI design. The findings contribute to the HCI community, and in particular to designers of social systems, by providing guidelines to targeted design that can increase online participation.

Understanding user participation in online communities: A systematic literature review of empirical studies

“…In addition to measuring the volume of participation and member satisfaction, research has also produced usability metrics and design recommendations for evaluating and developing user interfaces (Brandtzaeg & Heim, 2008;Maloney-Krichmar & Preece, 2005;Nov, Arazy, López, & Brusilovsky, 2013;Raghavun, 2011;Sahib & Vassileva, 2009). Maloney-Krichmar and Preece (2005) have identified a number of success metrics relating to usability and policy; instead of effective moderation they suggest the supporting of group norms, so that the groups can become self-moderating.…”

“…Some differences have been detected, not only in the amount of use but also concerning what people do online. Extroverts may spend less time online but are more prone to social networking, sharing and voicing their opinions, whereas those high in neurotic traits look for a sense of belonging (Nov et al, 2013). Findings by Cullen and Morse (2011) show that individuals high in neuroticism were less likely to actively participate in the online activity of the community, and motivations for participating varied according to personality trait, as those high in agreeableness were motivated by helping others whereas the main motivation for those high in conscientiousness was finding useful information.…”

“…Some characteristics typical of online communication, such as asynchronicity, anonymity and invisibility, can make it a more attractive channel for introverts who are more cautious and seek to minimize risks associated with their behavior (Nov et al, 2013). A test of the effect of audience size cues on contributions revealed different reactions among extroverts and introverts, so that when a large audience size encouraged extroverts to contribute, it decreased contributions by introverts (Nov et al, 2013).…”

The Persuasive Power of Data Visualization

“…We chose MT as our experimental platform as it allowed us to perform more iterations quickly and progressively to test our hypotheses on a diverse subject pool. In conducting research based on crowdsourced self-reported measures, we draw on an emerging research trend which demonstrates the viability of this approach [19,27]. For instance, Paolacci et al [32] compared results of classic experiments in judgment and decision-making using traditional and crowdsourcing methods and found that participants behave consistently.…”

Calendars: Time Coordination and Overview in Families and Beyond

“…Two recent papers we explored the effectiveness of personality-targeted design Nov, Arazy, Lopez, and Brusilovsky, 2013). For example, they showed how users' extroversion levels determine their response to a particular design intervention (manipulating an indicator presenting the number of past visitor in a social recommender system).…”