Social Visualization October 7, 1999

Crowds

Judith Donath

1) No circles next time?

2) What was it that caught your attention in real crowds, and how can you provide this ability in a virtual environment

3) Inhabited information spaces

4) Whyte video

a) Food

b) Sittable space

c) Water

d) Street

e) Trees

f) Lighting

g) Triangulation-external stimulation

h) Elicit conversation between strangers

i) Disabled access

j) Retail space

k) Why are most of these ignored in online socializing spaces?

5) Online spaces

a) Postings à replies attract other replies

b) time

i) Movement & actions

ii) Real world: presence over time

iii) Leave marking, accrue over time vs. immediate presence

c) Difficult to mimic real world scenario

i) Limited by current interface-people don’t know

ii) People want anonymity; voice/video interface gives that up

iii) Publicàprivate

iv) Anonymityàidentity

d) Many different types of crowds

i) Must break down their uses

ii) What makes real-world spaces work is a secondary use, not just a place to be with others

e) Internet

i) How often do you check for email?

ii) Desire for interruption and human contact

iii) Use of internet as a diversion

iv) Electric postcards-people can contact each other on the web

(1) Can contact without saying anything at all

v) How do you portray the “odd man out”

(1) Person who stands out

(2) Avatar? Not in the traditional sense but the fundamental idea behind them is important

(3) Snowcrash (Neal Stephenson)

(a) Off the shelf avatars-mall like; they liked it, but hackers see them as ridiculous

(b) Hackers, coolest people in the virtual world, have simple avatars

(4) What causes norms to evolve?

(5) Complexity of representation

(6) Start with something simple, abstract, meaningful

(7) What about hybrid representations? Active people have real representation. People who interact at a normal level or just lurk have just the “normal”, generic representation.

(8) Compact representation

(9) The more active a participant, the more ability others have to move him out of the way…