Fuse Labs

This week at we are presenting two research projects, a qualitative study and a system design, that highlight how the design of online communities can support creative expression and personal connections that otherwise wouldn’t have existed.

The first project, titled Journeys & Notes, focuses on the design and deployment of a production-quality mobile app that enables people to log their travels, leave notes behind, and build a community around spaces in between destinations (think of it as a Foursquare for trips). The app is playful, supports creative expression, and allows people to do this anonymously and pseudonymously. The project grew out of Justin Cranshaw’s internship project (who is now a full time member of our lab), in collaboration with designer S.A. Needham and myself. Justin is presenting the work on Wed May 11 at 4:30pm in room 210AE.
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=265171

The second project, Surviving an “Eternal September,” is a qualitative study of the NoSleep subreddit, an online community of horror fiction writers, was able to manage accelerated growth after being featured on the home page of Reddit. Usenet’s infamous “Eternal September” suggest that large influxes of newcomers can hurt online communities, but our interviews suggest that NoSleep survived without major incident because of three traits of this community: (1) administrators, (2) shared community moderation, and (3) technological infrastructure for preventing norm violations. This research was done in collaboration with Charles Kiene, a UW undergraduate student, and his advisor Benjamin Mako Hill at the UW Department of Communication. Charles presents the work on Mon May 9 at 4:30 pm in room LL20A.
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=260882

Designing & Studying Social Computing Systems―FUSE research at #CHI2016 - Blog of FUSE Labs at... Designing & Studying Social Computing Systems―FUSE research at This week at CHI our lab is presenting two research projects that highlight how the design of online communities can support...

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