Overview
Internet is becoming more and more a platform for social interactions. We can formulate the concept of sociability, means to what degree that an Internet application can support social interaction and one’s social networks. In this continuing study, we examined how sociability is perceived by users and possible factors influencing users’ choice on social software.
In this series of studies we applied user interview, think aloud, online questionnaire. Limited by space here, I only present some highlights below in diagrams. For complete reference, please download the papers.
Highlight: quality dimensions of social network services
We deployed online questionnaires, collected 168 valid responses, and performed factor analysis to identify factor structure of user perceived SNS quality dimensions.
Highlight: sociability ranking of tools by Chinese users
We conducted in-deep interviews to 35 Chinese Internet users and asked about their rank of sociability of tools. Lower rank indicates higher sociability.
Highlight: social tool usage distribution of Chinese users
This diagram was generated from interview results.
Paper Download
* Dai, Y.S., et al, User Perceived Quality of Online Social Information Services: From the Perspective of Knowledge Management, IEEM 2007, Singapore. Dec. 2-5, 2007. [ download pdf ]
* Gao, Q., Kang, R. G., Fan, Z., Dai, Y. S., Wu, S. and Yang, Y. C. (2008). Understanding Sociability of Social software: an Exploratory Study. AEI2008, Las Vegas. July 14-17, 2008. [ download pdf ]