Designing for respect and diversity in online social interfaces for public discourse

Communication designers’ ways of making need to be considered in understanding how conversational spaces for public discourse come to be. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how the concept of uncommons can be materialized in designs of social interfaces. By designing for learning, deliberation, inclusivity, respect, and listening, communication designers might help avoid the use of harassment and suppression techniques in online social interfaces which affect women and marginalized users in particular. My motivation is to give designers tools to create designs that align with specific democratic values that I consider important. Through shaping, analyzing, and juxtaposing two of my own designs with a traditional commenting forum, I categorize five components: Conversational content, conversational architecture, input options, incentives and rewards, and user visibility. By using autoethnography, this study documents how personal motivations, norms, and gendered experiences can influence designs and meaning-making choices.