Design for communication oriented online communities is well understood, but the effectiveness of communication is reduced when more complex social interaction is concerned. There are few considerations based on the user identification, social presence, expression or proximity, where actually these highly complex online communications can be improved and refined by implementing and incorporating visual communication. This dissertation will focus on the advantages and communication effectiveness of graphical online communities. Furthermore visual environments can be one of the solutions to enhance the capability of communication through computer mediated environment. The results are to discuss how these visually refined environments can be used to facilitate online communities more effective and comprehensive.

MA dissertation: Interactive Digital Media