Online communities have become a key source of information and support for many people. These communities enable users and contributors to coordinate their activities. People from across the world regularly meet, greet, get to know each other and keep in contact via online communities; patients are helped to cope better with their diseases; students discuss homework projects; hobbyists pursue their passions; and teens chat about their lives. Scholars use online communities to track academic topics; lawyers seek legal information; and professionals exchange business knowledge. Almost any kind of face-to-face communication can also happen online, although the form and timing is usually different and a greater range of additional functions can often be added to online conversations, such as tracking, archiving, and searching. A variety of software facilitates information exchange and communication including: wikis, blogs, discussion boards, instant messaging, and other web-based technologies, cell phones, and immersive virtual environments. The variety of applications is growing and changing all the time. Creating successful online communities requires attention to usability and sociability. Participants must be able to use and interact with the technology (i.e., usability) and with each other via the technology (i.e., sociability). Attending to issues such as how users create and send messages, and how the software can be used to communicate non-verbal cues are examples of usability design; attending to the social processes required for moderation, facilitation, politeness, leadership, and social support online are examples of sociability design. Both are necessary for successful communities. In this talk I will discuss the concept of an online community; present a framework for developing and analyzing online communities; and discuss ways of encouraging participation and empathy online by focusing on sociability and usability.

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