Knowledge Production and Social Roles in an Online Community of Emerging Occupation: A Study of User Experience Practitioners on Reddit

Abstract

New occupations are emerging that have high job demand in the market, but lack a coherent body of disciplinary knowledge. For example, user experience (UX) design is an emerging occupation that has not been adequately supported by the traditional educational system. For learners beginning their undergraduate education, there is no concrete path to follow to become a UX professional, due to few UXfocused undergraduate academic programs. Online communities of practices have been recognized as important learning venues, even while institutions of formal education often lag behind in structuring knowledge production and distribution. However, little is known about how knowledge is generated and diffused in online communities in the context of emerging occupations with volatile knowledge boundaries. In this paper, we analyze knowledge production in relation to social roles in an online UX community. We show that knowledge production is highly distributed, involving the participation of community members of varied levels of experience. We discuss how online communities support the development of the UX occupation.

Work-related Internet use as a threat to work-life balance – a comparison between the emerging on-line professions and traditional office work

“…Yet, previous studies have mainly focused on the aspects of wellbeing and health resulting from using the Internet for private purposes. Hence, the specificity of psychological demands of the emerging on-line professions requiring permanent presence on-line, and their impact on work ability as well as on mental and physical health, remain largely unknown [5][6][7][8]. On the one hand, previous studies have shown that the majority of people using the Internet for personal purposes feel that it facilitates their everyday functioning, helping them in communicating with friends and family, searching for information and entertainment, as well as conducting everyday transactions [9].…”

“…Constant presence on-line might also prevent individuals from focusing on work and, as a consequence, deteriorate their mental health [16]. If it comes to work-related Internet and social media use, the current research is exceptionally scarce [5][6][7][8]. Current evidence recognizes some substantial resources (e.g., access to first-hand information or feedback from the consumers or partners that increases workers' engagement) as well as excess demands (e.g., exhaustion and threat to work-life balance [WLB] due to "boundary conflicts") [8, p. 8].…”

Users roles identification on online crowdsourced Q&A platforms and encyclopedias: a survey

“…Thus, platforms like Reddit are a valuable source of information for such areas of interest and enable learners to clarify their doubts. Kou et al [53,101] studied a User Experience (UX) subreddit by using open coding to extract information about how each author described and presented their knowledge and experience in the field from their subreddit posts and comments. They finally obtained 5 major roles: (1) Knowledge Brokers brought in new knowledge by sharing links, (2) Translators made posts presenting their academic insights, (3) Experienced Practitioners shared their mastery obtained through their long experience in the industry, (4) Conversation Facilitators initiated discussions, and (5) Learners were newcomers who intended to obtain knowledge from experts.…”

A deeper investigation of different types of core users and their contributions for sustainable innovation in a company-hosted online co-creation community

“…Instead, an integrative approach that combines two or more approaches would be more appropriate, especially when the goal is to achieve a comprehensive understanding of fragmented, inconclusive, and equivocal phenomena like online communities (Venkatesh, Brown, & Sullivan, 2016). Some researchers have explored an integrated approach for different types of online communities (Akar, Mardikyan, & Dalgic, 2019;Benamar et al, 2017;Fuger et al, 2017;Füller et al, 2014;Guo et al, 2017;Kou, Gray, Toombs, & Adams, 2018;Pfeil et al, 2011). For example, Pfeil et al (2011) investigated online support communities and summarized characteristics of member behavior through content analysis and structural equivalence.…”

“…For example, Pfeil et al (2011) investigated online support communities and summarized characteristics of member behavior through content analysis and structural equivalence. Kou et al (2018) studied an online user experience community. By applying linguistic analysis of member posts and comments and social structures, they identified 6 member types (i.e., knowledge broker, translator, experienced practitioner, conversation facilitator, and learner).…”