User-centered development of social collaboration software

Social networking functions make their way through more and more applications for private and professional use as they encourage participation and content contribution. However, designing and implementing components that attract users and truly support content creation is not a trivial task. In this paper, we present our user-centered approach of integrating social network components into a collaboration software system. The Tele-Board system is designed for supporting creative teams in their synchronous and asynchronous whiteboard work via distances. Especially for creating awareness on who did what when and documenting the project progress in general, special functions were needed. We present our procedure and challenges as well as the implementation and user feedback on the new components.