<b>Augmenting Group Contributions Online: </b><b>How do Visual Chart Structures Applied to Social Data Affect Group Perceptions and Contributions</b>
Creators: name: Promann, Marlen
Publisher: name: Purdue University Graduate School
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 460803
subject: Collaborative and social computing
classificationCode: 460806
subject: Human-computer interaction
classificationCode: 460807
subject: Information visualisation
classificationCode: 460809
subject: Pervasive computing
classificationCode: 520406
subject: Sensory processes, perception and performance
classificationCode: 330313
subject: Social design
classificationCode: 461002
subject: Human information behaviour
classificationCode: 330316
subject: Visual communication design (incl. graphic design)

description: Humans are social beings and throughout our evolution we have survived and thrived thanks to our ability to cooperate [7]. Overcoming our current societal challenges from sustainability and energy conservation [8] to democracy, public health, and community building [9] will all require our continued cooperation. Yet, many of these present us with a dilemma where our short-term personal goals are at odds with the collective long-term benefits. For example, many of us listen NPR radio but never make a donation to help cover its operational costs. The success of cooperation during such dilemmatic situations often depends on communication, reward and punishment structures, social norms and cues [10], [11], [12], [13]. But how to encourage cooperation online where social cues are not readily available?Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the prevalence of digital technologies, cooperation among individuals increasingly happens online where data-based feedback supports our decisions. Problematically, people online are often not only remote and asynchronous, but often also anonymous, which has resulted in de-individuation and antinormative behavior [14]. Social data, information that users share about themselves via digital technologies, may offer opportunities for social feedback design that affords perceptions of social cohesion and may support successful cooperation online.This dissertation seeks to answer the normative question of how to design for cooperation in social data feedback charts in dilemmatic situations online. I conducted mixed methods design research by combining theory-driven design with a series of controlled experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk to understand the perceptual and behavioral effects of visually unifying social data feedback charts. To achieve this, I mapped the design space for home energy feedback (<i>Chapter 2</i>) to guide my iterative and user-centered theorizing about how visual unity in social feedback charts might prime viewers with unified group perceptions (<i>Chapter 3</i>). I then validated my theorizing with controlled perceptual (<i>Chapter 4</i>) and decision experiments (<i>Chapter 5</i>).The triangulated results offer evidence for visually unifying cues in feedback charts affecting social data interpretation (<i>Chapter 4</i>) and cooperation online (<i>Chapter 5</i>). Two visual properties: data point <i>proximity</i> and <i>enclosure</i> -, trigger variable levels of perceivable social unity that play a partial role in participants’ decision to cooperate in a non-monetary social dilemma situation online. I discuss the implications for future research and design (<i>Chapter 6</i>).