These are the slides from a talk I gave in November 2012, at Untapped event, a UX conference in London. The aim was to shed light and awareness into business' benefit of creating and maintaining healthy online communities of customers, in times of economical downturn.

1. BACK TO BASICS
ONLINE SOCIAL

2. I AM:
2004 2006 2008 2012 2012
COMMUNICATION GRAPHIC VISUAL HCI-E UX ARCHITECT
DESIGN (BA) DESIGNER DESIGNER (MSC)
PORTO GRONINGEN LONDON LONDON LONDON
PORTUGAL THE NETHERLANDS UK UK UK

3. A BUNCH OF SOCIAL MEDIA:
THE LIST GOES ON

4. OUTATIME

5. REMEMBER ONLINE COMMUNITIES?
SHARE A COMMON INTEREST OR GOAL,
S U P P O R T E AC H OT H E R, O P I N I O N AT E , D I S C U S S …
+

6. BRANDED
ONLINE COMMUNITIES
24.9%
AND
ARE ON THE
RISE
THE SOCIAL CUSTOMER INDEX WHITE PAPER, SOCIAL MEDIA TODAY & SAP (2012)

7. ONLINE CASUAL GAMI NG
COMMUNITIES
OMGPOP.COM
1.5M MEMBERS
540K ACTIVE USERS
50% IN THE USA
HTTP://WWW.QUANTCAST.COM/OMGPOP.COM

8. ONLINE CASUAL GAMI NG
COMMUNITIES
2 MAIN COMMUNICATION CHANNELS:
L I V E C H AT & F O R U M
3 MAIN TYPES OF USERS:
L I V E C H AT U S E R S FORUM USERS M O D E R ATO R S

9. Hi,
I’m Captain Crush,
a chat user.
Photo credit: erin leigh mcconnell / Foter / CC BY

11. BENEFIT
IN PL AY COMMUNIT Y
GAMES
PEOPLE PL AYING PEOPLE TALKING PEOPLE INVITING
MORE GAMES
MORE PEOPLE PL AYING MORE PEOPLE TALKING MORE PEOPLE INVITING

12. DESIGN FOR THE “NOW”
Prompt users to participate in multiple social activities
(not just play), for example in live chat competitions. These could be
advertised through streams of chat rooms’ activity displayed
elsewhere in the website, or in other relevant social media.

13. Hi,
I’m Lunar Eclipse,
a forum user.
Photo credit: dogseat / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

14. EXCERPTS FROM FORUM USERS
“I find it addicting also, there are always “They (forum) help so people can
interesting topics to talk about. I've seen contribute more to the site, like
someone who are also interested to what I'd suggestions and to talk about what’s
wrong with the site, what could be
listen to in terms of music and art.”
changed...”

15. BENEFIT
DEVELOPMENT OF SRONGER TIES
SELF - DISCLOSURE
SENSE OF COMMUNITY
L OYA LT Y
LO N G E R A N D R E P E AT E D V I S I T S TO T H E W E B S I T E

16. D E S I G N F O R “ I N T E G R AT I O N ”
Highlight discussions which elicit self-disclosure,
for example turning them into sticky threads, and display those
elsewhere in the website, or in any other relevant social media.

17. Hi, I’m Swifty,
a moderator.
Photo credit: tray / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

18. BENEFIT
SERVES AND ENGAGES THE USER
C O L L E C T S D ATA O N T H E U S E R S
H E L P S E N A B L I N G U S E R ’ S D R I V E N I N N O VAT I O N

19. DESIGN FOR “PREVENTION”
Allow ability to trigger an invisibility layer in order to deal with bad
behaviour in the community: once a customer behaves inappropriately
his/her comments are invisible to the rest of the community.

20. BENEFIT
S T I M U L AT E E N G A G E M E N T A N D LOYA LT Y
MORE BUSINESS!
IT’S A TOUGH ECONOMY

21. THANK YOU!
@ S I LV I N A C O U T O

22. FONT
BRANDON GROTESQUE
Designer: Hannes von Döhren, 2010. Publisher: HVD Fonts
REFERENCES
http://socialmediatoday.com/vanessa-dimauro/965031/why-branded-online-community-deliver-social-customer-
care?utm_source=hootsuite&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=hootsuite_tweets
Millington, R.: www.feverbee.com
http://www.quantcast.com/omgpop.com
Preece, J. (2000) Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Usability. John Willey & Sons Ltd
Couto, S. (2012) Supporting a Sense of Community in Online Casual Gaming. Project Dissertation for MSc
(Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics), Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, 2012.