Constructing and evaluating social software: lessons from Interaction Design

The process of developing interactive systems necessitates designers to have a comprehensive understanding of the needs of the user and the context in which a device or system is to be used. Interactive systems are often designed through a series of iterations, guided by a sequence of evaluations. This chapter describes how the research and development techniques used within the field of Interaction Design (ID), a successor to the field of human-computer interaction, can be used to inform the development and evaluation of social software systems. Particular attention is given towards the challenging area of end-user culture and how different evaluation paradigms and techniques can be applied. The chapter concludes by presenting pointers towards a number of international standards and highlighting a number of potentially useful research directions