Gender inclusivity in online question and answer communities: investigating community member practices and perceptions to work towards equitable interfaces
| dc.contributor.author | Dubois, Patrick | |
| dc.contributor.examiningcommittee | Young, James E. (Computer Science) | en_US |
| dc.contributor.examiningcommittee | Prentice, Susan (Sociology and Criminology) | en_US |
| dc.contributor.examiningcommittee | Tang, Anthony (Faculty of Information, University of Toronto) | en_US |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Bunt, Andrea | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-10-28T14:11:51Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-10-28T14:11:51Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 2022-10-27 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-09-12 | |
| dc.date.submitted | 2022-10-27T19:56:03Z | en_US |
| dc.degree.discipline | Computer Science | en_US |
| dc.degree.level | Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Online Question and Answer communities (Q&As) are one resource that people use to learn complex, feature-rich software, such as graphic design software. Community members, both learners and experts, collaboratively create a knowledge base by authoring content in the form of questions and answers. Q&As benefit from a variety of users drawing from their experiences to contribute content, and the users themselves can grow professionally and personally by participating. However, Q&As might not be fully inclusive, with certain user groups not participating to their full extent. As a result, Q&As may be missing perspectives, content may become biased, and users may miss out on opportunities. In this thesis, I investigate how Q&As appeal to people of different genders, and how interface design affects people’s perceptions of, and participation in Q&As. I analyze content of two live Q&As for gender differences in who contributes and in what content is preferred. I interview users to understand how they currently perceive Q&As, and to identify how motivations and deterrents to participating differ between genders. Finally, I conduct a task-based field deployment study using prototype Q&A interfaces to see how people of different genders use and perceive additional community presence information. I find that current graphic design Q&As appeal less to women than they do to men: women participate less frequently than men do; women appear to prefer content which is less valued and often discouraged; and women receive less validation for their contributions than do men. The findings suggest ways to make Q&As more gender-equitable communities. Adding community presence information, as well as social considerations to a Q&A interface design seem to promote a more inclusive and humanized environment, which is more welcoming to women. Despite these positive effects, some participants are uninterested in community presence information, seeing these design changes as unsuitable for Q&As’ purposes and which may implicate privacy concerns. Nevertheless, there is potential in these interface design revisions to promote more gender inclusivity in Q&As. | en_US |
| dc.description.note | February 2023 | en_US |
| dc.description.sponsorship | University of Manitoba | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1993/36957 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | en_US |
| dc.rights | open access | en_US |
| dc.subject | gender | en_US |
| dc.subject | women | en_US |
| dc.subject | Q&A | en_US |
| dc.subject | social presence and awareness | en_US |
| dc.subject | homophily | en_US |
| dc.subject | community presence | en_US |
| dc.subject | Stack Exchange | en_US |
| dc.subject | Quora | en_US |
| dc.title | Gender inclusivity in online question and answer communities: investigating community member practices and perceptions to work towards equitable interfaces | en_US |
| dc.type | doctoral thesis | en_US |
| local.subject.manitoba | no | en_US |
| project.funder.identifier | https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000038 | en_US |
| project.funder.name | Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada | en_US |