Making Space for Support: An Exploratory Analysis of Pandemic-Response Mutual Aid Platforms

Tiffany Knearem, Jeongwon Jo, Chun Hua Tsai, John M. Carroll

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an era of unprecedented hardship across the United States. In response, local community members leveraged mutual aid as a form of citizen-based, peer-to-peer care. In this paper, we are interested in teasing out significant design features that support the facilitation of mutual aid on online platforms. To this end, we conducted a scenario-based claims analysis of the two most widely used platforms for mutual aid, based on three primary user groups. Our analysis suggests that design for mutual aid platforms considers features which support request standardization and balanced visibility alongside validation and conversational interaction.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationC and T 2021 - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Communities and Technologies
Subtitle of host publicationWicked Problems in the Age of Tech
EditorsFlorian Cech, Shelly Farnham
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages38-43
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781450390569
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 20 2021
Event10th International Conference on Communities and Technologies: Wicked Problems in the Age of Tech, C and T 2021 - Virtual, Online, United States
Duration: Jun 21 2021Jun 25 2021

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Conference

Conference10th International Conference on Communities and Technologies: Wicked Problems in the Age of Tech, C and T 2021
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityVirtual, Online
Period6/21/216/25/21

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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