Designing inclusive social networks: A participatory approach

Abstract

The Brazilian society is characterized by vast differences with regard to socio-economics, culture as well as access to technology and knowledge. In this scenario, Information and Communication Technology, especially hypermedia systems, could benefit citizen, allowing access to knowledge, communication and collaboration. Current social networks systems were not conceived to address the challenges of an inclusive society. In this paper, we discuss some relevant design issues, elicited from a participatory approach, to the design of such systems. The exploratory design process starts with the elicitation of the different views among users, designers and developers, passes through design concepts definition and gets to a first approximation to a user interfaces design. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.