A Design Theory for IT Supporting Online Communities

Differently from other studies that tend to take into consideration actual behaviors of online community users, this paper addresses the design problem of IT platforms for supporting these communities. At the basis of this design theory here introduced there is the so called kernel theory. The comparison between offline and online communities allowed to outline main factors of this theory that were used in order to derive prescriptions for the meta-requirements, the product features (meta-design), the design process (design method) and the definition of testable design product and process hypotheses. An intelligent multimedia platform providing innovative social e-services for European elderly persons and their social entourage constituted the case study in which the IT design theory was applied.