Research On Users' Experience And Interaction Behavior In Participatory Websites

The increased popularity of Web 2.0 technology has given rise to a new computer-mediated communication system called participatory website,which transforms social interaction.Recently,participatory websites have become the hot topics in both academic and industrial research areas,and users' behaviors in the context of participatory websites have received increased interest of academia.However,the existent research of danmu-enabled participatory websites is still in its infancy which lacks a thorough and integrated study on the users' social interaction behaviors in danmu-enabled participatory websites because of its being a relatively new phenomenon.Accordingly,this paper aims to reveal the pattern and formation mechanism of user social interaction behaviors in the context of danmu-enabled participatory websites,so as to better formulate and implement platform optimization strategies for participatory websites and provide theoretical foundation and practical guidance for the ability to transform user experience values of danmu systems into business values.In the context of danmu-enabled participatory websites,users' interaction behaviors include the interaction between users and content,the interaction between users and participatory platforms,and the interaction among users.According to the participatory websites practices in China,three research questions are proposed,and then users' interaction behaviors on the danmu-enabled participatory websites,consisting of content selection,website usage,and danmu engagement,are investigated.First,given that the content selection behavior as the basic participation behavior on the participatory website,this study provides initial insights for studying the content selection behavior pattern of users based on the herding theory from sociology.Based on the analysis of panel data from a popular danmu-enabled video website in China,bilibili.com,this study first evinces the existence of herding on the participatory website and the diminishing marginal effect of herding measure.The results reveal that rational herding dominates users' video selection.Subsequently,some variables amplify the herding effects,such as the copyright of a video and the number of uploader's friends.This study provides implications for the way in user content selection behavior on the danmu-enabled participatory website.Second,based on the shared-attention model from psychological science,this study explains the influence of the technological characteristics of danmu on the usage of participatory website.The empirical study results indicate that pseudo-synchronicity,perceived proximity and insight support features of danmu exert significantly positive influences on user co-experience,and in turn the usage of participatory website.Finally,based on the stimulus-organism-response model and prominence-interpretation theory,this study explicates the influences of prominence(spatial proximity and temporal proximity)and interpretation(information complementarity and emotional synchrony)features of danmu on the user engagement from an integrative perspective of augmentation(para-social interaction)and degradation(perceived intrusiveness)user experience.The empirical study results indicate that spatial proximity positively influences perceived intrusiveness and temporal proximity positively influences para-social interaction.In addition,information complementarity and emotional synchrony have positive impacts on para-social interaction and negative impacts on perceived intrusiveness,which suggest that the prominence and interpretation features of danmu can positively affect user engagement by enhancing users' para-social interaction and reducing their perceptions of intrusiveness.