Seminar: Social Software

Project seminar; Winter 2003/2004
Aachen University of Applied Science
12 weeks (with 18 hours per week)

Aim

The seminar is aimed at introducing the relatively new term "Social software". While the phenomenon of software with social relevance or impact is not new, a social approach to software design certainly is. Students are going to learn about the interplay of social science and software design and adopt research findings for interaction design practice.

Objectives

The seminar consists of three steps. In the first step participants trace the current discourse related to the topic "social software". In the second step they develop own concepts for products or software that follows the discovered principles. The final step is a teamwork effort where students try to design and implement a system that benefits the social interaction of the department community.

Outcome

Students developed community systems for special interest groups. They presented their concepts together with research findings.

Weblog
http://seminare.design.fh-aachen.de/ssw/

References

"Sociomedia", Edward Barrett, 1993

"Community Building on the Web", Amy J. Kim, 2000

"The Construction of Social Reality", John Searle, 1997