Posting for community and culture: considerations for the design of interactive digital bulletin boards

Abstract

The next decade is likely to see a shift in digital public displays moving from non-interactive to interactive content. This will likely create a need for digital bulletin boards and for a better understanding of how such displays should be designed to encourage community members to interact with them. Our study addresses this by exploring community bulletin boards as a ubiquitous type of participatory non-digital display "in the wild". Our results highlight how they are used for content of local and contextual relevance, and how cultures of participation, personalization, location, the tangible character of architecture, access, control and flexibility might affect community members' level of engagement with them. Our analysis suggests entry points as design considerations intrinsically linked to the users' sense of agency within a delineated space. Overlaps with related work are identified throughout to provide further validation of previous findings in this area of research.