Community, Group and Individual: A Framework for Designing Community Technologies

In this paper, I draw on sociology and urban studies literature to describe a framework with three components that should be considered when designing community technologies: community, group, and individual. I use this framework to discuss current community technologies and describe three best practices vital for the success of community technologies: 1) increasing social cohesion and social capital, 2) engaging small groups of community members, and 3) encouraging participation through interest-based technologies. I use an example of a community technology to illustrate how each of these dimensions can be incorporated into the development of new technologies.