Resumen: Supporting people with special needs is a multi-disciplinary endeavour that involves many stakeholders. Social relations have a determining impact on the quality of the related processes. Online social networks (OSN) have demonstrated their capacity to change human interaction paradigms; however, their application to disability is a barely-explored field of research. This paper describes the design, development and deployment of an OSN in a 24/7 residence for people with disabilities in order to improve productivity, enhance the quality of care processes and foster social relations. During fourteen months of operation, 46 people, including caregivers, health professionals (psychologists, occupational therapists, and physiotherapists, among others), supervisors, administrative staff, residents and their family members, used the OSN. Our quantitative and qualitative results indicate adequate OSN technical performance; validate user-oriented design methodology; confirm productivity and quality of service improvement; and confirm the capacity of OSNs to positively influence social relations in such environments. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.1016/j.comcom.2015.09.020 Año: 2016 Publicado en: COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS 73, Part B. (2016), 315-331 ISSN: 0140-3664 Factor impacto JCR: 3.338 (2016) Categ. JCR: COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS rank: 23 / 146 = 0.158 (2016) - Q1 - T1 Categ. JCR: TELECOMMUNICATIONS rank: 20 / 88 = 0.227 (2016) - Q1 - T1 Categ. JCR: ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC rank: 50 / 259 = 0.193 (2016) - Q1 - T1 Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.621 - Computer Networks and Communications (Q1)