What a community does to engage its members and generate content 

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

Community structure within online communities

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


University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

New York University

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

Learn After