- Do users communicate about themselves (e.g. user profiles)

- Is content imported from outside, user generated or generated by its members? (or a combination)

- Are their welcoming activities and safe spaces to engage newcomers in?

- Are tasks independent or interdependent?

- Are the activities immersive and/or social?

Example of content, tasks and activities decisions in OCs

Users will have trouble knowing what needs to be done in a community, if the community never tells them. This is why platforms often adopt systems to show their contributors what is needed. It increases  the chance the community will provide them (DC1 CH2)

Providing users with a list of what needs to be done

Easy to use tools that helps users find and track work that needs to be done increases the amount that gets done. (DC 2 CH2)

Providing tools for finding and tracking work

Online communities can request specific contributions from their community members

Requesting contributions from community members

What a community does to engage its members and generate content 

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Also referred to as "design alternatives" or "design options", they make up 8 categories that can be changed or influenced by managers, designers or members to help achieve a goal of the community.

1. Community structure

2. Content, tasks and activities

3. Selection, sorting, and  highlighting

4. External communication

5. Feedback and rewards

6. Roles, rules, policies, and procedures 

7. Access controls

8. Presentation and framing


Levers of change for online communities

Kraut, Robert E., and Paul Resnick. Building successful online communities: Evidence-based social design. MIT Press, 2012.

Building successful online communities: Evidence-based social design (Kraut and Resnick)

Content, tasks and activities

How communities select, sort and highlight things so people find the best content and activity for themselves. 

Selection, sorting, and highlighting

How the community engages with content and members outside of the community

External communication

Feedback: tells people how other users feel about their participation in a community.

Rewards and sanctions: give or take away something that users find valuable based on their behavior.



Feedback and rewards (and sanctions)

What measures a community has taken to establish conventions that help regulate behavior 

Roles, rules, policies, and procedures

Who can join the community and what actions they can take.

Access controls

How a community frames what it is, what it does and what happens within it.

Presentation and framing

The constituents of a community and how its formed

Learn Before

Related

Learn After