Abstract

The Internet is a community where everyone can share resources and ideas. Millions of users use their time reading, chatting or studying online. Designing an attractive interface for Internet communication is a challenging task. The internet hosts not only leisure activities but also commercial transactions. The lack of vivid communication channels may limit the ability to convey social information for Internet communication. However, the absences of rich communication channels may provide an environment for some specific activities. This paper aims to discuss different task styles, different interfaces and their relationships between each other. A 2D interface and a 3D interface were developed as test platforms to assess the social suitability for different styles of tasks and users with different sociability types. The results show that there is a significant relationship between the task style and the social presence preference, which links to different guidelines for Internet interface design.