Facilitating Social Participation Through Design

ASEE 2011 ABSTRACT PROPOSALFACILITATING SOCIAL PARTICIPATION THROUGH DESIGN:An exploration of emotional connection and motivation in online communitiesKress, Greg; Getz-Kikuchi, Regina; Price, Tessa; Karanian, BarbaraIncreasingly, our emotional connections, artistic experiences and playful escapes aremigrating to the virtual world. Virtual environments and online communities are growingand becoming more commonplace in society; for many, they are already a primary meansof social interaction. This experiment is a preliminary investigation into the underlyingemotions and motives behind participants in the IMVU virtual universe. We seek a deepunderstanding of why these users choose to spend their time and money to take part increating this online community. Our collaborative research team includes members fromthe areas of engineering, design, psychology and communication. Our need-findinginteractions with users both inside and out of the IMVU environment have given usinsight into the role of avatars, creative expression and social interaction in the virtualworld. Surprising discoveries include a strong gender imbalance in the community aswell as a prevalence of “hiding” behavior. The full experiment offers compellingimplications for creating effective design interventions in team-based engineering anddesign classes as well as for those pursuing the stories of compassion, empathy and socialchange by design.Index terms –Design Thinking, IMVU, Emotions, Motivation, Social Participation,Compassion, Hiding, Inventive Action