Engaging a design community online

The Powerhouse Museum is one of Australia's largest museums with a collection of 400,000 objects relating to design, science and technology. It is a leading exponent in the design and implementation of social media tools through which to engage online communities. For example, the objective of its design hub portal was to create an online resource that would become the first stop for design-related information and resources for students and practitioners in the state of New South Wales. Focusing on the design hub portal, this paper presents a case study on designing for online user motivation to ensure that social media tools and networks engage the target community. Research tools based on human-computer interaction knowledge include expert interface analysis and web analytics. The findings from this case study underline the importance of making an online community of contributors visible to each other and to the wider audience.