Interactive design principles: online communities and the user experience

Abstract

This paper identifies interactive design principles through user experience via online communities that will allow web site designers to create compelling, useful and truly interactive user experiences. There are many features of online communities that both heighten and empower users' online interactive experiences. However, many web sites are developed using design principles inherited from the print domain which do not directly relate to an online user experience. In terms of communication and interactive design, web design must be based upon principles relevant to the web medium; otherwise the designed site will not reflect the intrinsic nature of the medium and what the user expects to find and to interact with online. The outcomes are four design principles extracted from the online user experiences that are participational design, communicational design, connective design and stylising design.