The ACM CSCW conference is a leading forum for presenting and discussing research and development achievements concerning the use of computer technologies to support collaborative activities, as well as the impact of digital collaboration technologies on users, groups, organizations and society.
“Awareness of individual and group activities is critical to successful collaboration and is commonly supported in CSCW systems by active, information generation mechanisms separate from the shared workspace. These mechanisms penalise information providers, presuppose relevance to the recipient, and make access difficult. We discuss a study of shared editor use which suggests that awareness information provided and exploited passively through the shared workspace, allows users to move smoothly between close and loose collaboration, and to assign and coordinate work dynamically. Passive awareness mechanisms promise effective support for collaboration requiring this sort of behaviour, whilst avoiding problems with active approaches.”
“The aim of this paper is to explore some ways of linking ethnographic studies of work in context with the design of CSCW systems. It uses examples from an interdisciplinary collaborative project on air traffic control. Ethnographic methods are introduced, and applied to identifying the social organization of this cooperative work, and the use of instruments within it. On this basis some metaphors for the electronic representation of current manual practices are presented, and their possibilities and limitations are discussed.”
“This paper relates experiences of a project where an ethnographic study of air traffic controllers is being used to inform the design of the controllers' interface to the flight data base. We outline the current UK air traffic control system, discuss the ethnographic work we have undertaken studying air traffic control as a cooperative activity, describe some of the difficulties in collaboration between software developers and sociologists and show how the ethnographic studies have influenced the systems design process. Our conclusions are that ethnographic studies are helpful in informing the systems design process and may produce insights which contradict conventional thinking in systems design.”
“Informal consulting interactions between apprentices and experts represent a little-studied but common collaborative work practice in many domains. In the computer industry, programmers become apprentices as they retool themselves to new computer languages, programming environments, software frameworks and systems. Our empirical study of consulting interactions has provided insights into the nature of this informal collaborative work practice. We describe the variety of "hard-to-find" information provided by the expert, the incidental learning observed, and the pair's strategies for managing joint and individual productivity. Given these observations, we discuss how computer-based tools could help apprentices encapsulate task context, switch among subtasks, facilitate collaborative interaction, and supplement consultants.”
“Today, most cooperative systems support primarily either asynchronous or synchronous (real time) cooperative work. We feel that both synchronous and asynchronous cooperation are extremely important aspects of working in groups, and to ignore one or the other is to supply only half a solution to users. In this paper, we describe the extension of the hypertext authoring system SEPIA developed at GMD-IPSI to support cooperative work among hypertext authors. Cooperative SEPIA is unique not only in its ability to support cooperative work in both of these categories, but also in how smoothly and naturally it supports the transition between these two categories.”
“An important activity in collaborative writing is communicating about changes to texts. This paper reports on a software system, flexible diff, that finds and reports differences ("diffs") between versions of texts. The system is flexible, allowing users to control several aspects of its operation including what changes are reported and how they are shown when they are reported. We argue that such flexibility is necessary to support users' different social and cognitive needs.”
“According to contingency theory, tasks involving high levels of uncertainty and equivocality require a communication medium that permits interactive, expressive communication. The theory of adaptive structuration, however, takes a more dynamic view of the relationship between communication technology and communication behavior, recognizing the malleability of human behavior as well as the adaptability of technology. According to the structuration perspective, individuals can adapt their behavior to achieve their goals despite obstacles in the technological environment. To assess the relative validity of these formulations, we examined media choices and responses to communication constraints in a collaborative writing task. The results of this experiment indicate that contingency theory has some general validity in that the task/technology matches it defines do, indeed, occur spontaneously and do contribute to ease and efficiency in task performance. However, the results also draw attention to the human potential for behavioral adaptation, and imply a need for further research designed to identify likely patterns of adaptation in particular technological environments.”
“Drawing on field studies of three, real world, organisational environments, namely an architectural practice, a medical centre and the Control Rooms on London Underground, this paper explores the ways in which personnel use paper and screen based documentation to support synchronous and asynchronous collaborative activity. It discusses how collaboration involves a complex configuration of co-participation by personnel in a range of activities, ranging from seemingly individual tasks to mutually focussed, real time cooperation. By addressing the ways in which personnel manage collaboration and interactionally organise a range of activities, we discuss the ways in which paper and screen based media provide rather distinctive support for cooperation. These observations form the basis for some suggestions concerning requirements for CSCW systems.”
“In this paper, I discuss the affordances offered by media spaces for collaboration, contrasting their properties with those of the everyday medium and exploring the implications for perception and interaction. Collaboration is situated in a physical environment which supports or constrains the various forms social interactions might take. An analysis of the affordances of the environment -- the properties that offer actions and interactions to those within it -- thus complements analyses which emphasize social and cultural factors. Examining the "physics" of media space systems is helpful both in understanding how people use them to collaborate and in suggesting possibilities for design.”
“Our work focuses on providing computational support for informal communication among people who are geographically separated. To better understand the use of artifacts in communication, we looked at the contents of office whiteboards after they had been used in conversations. Our analysis revealed that whiteboards are used to present and discuss various classes of objects with specific semantic properties. We call these objects "conversational props," and we have come to think of a whiteboard as a conversational medium in which props are introduced and manipulated. This study motivated our design of the Conversation Board, an experimental prototype of a multi-user drawing tool which allows remote use of conversational props. We compare the Conversation Board to various other multi-user drawing tools along a number of dimensions.”
“A system that allows people to simultaneously modify a common design in a graphically rich environment was developed to identify and examine groupware interface issues unique to three-dimensional computer-aided design. Experiments confirmed that a simultaneous mode of edit access is preferred over a turn-taking mode for two-person interactions. Also, independent points of view (e.g., isometric versus top view) between designers optimized parallel activity. Further experiments that aimed to transfer software-usage knowledge through the groupware system led to the development of the viewpoint. The viewpoint is a tool that indicates the points of view of different designers as well as provides a method of pointing effective in an environment where arbitrary, contrasting points of views are allowed.”
“A range of architectures have emerged which support real-time cooperative user interfaces. These architectures have tended to centralise the management of the interface and thus provide only limited support for user-centred development and interface tailoring. This paper considers the problems associated with the development of tailorable cooperative interfaces and proposes an architecture which allows such interfaces to be developed using an incremental, user-centred approach. The architecture presented in this paper has emerged within the context of a project investigating cooperative interface development for UK air traffic control. We conclude that the architecture is equally applicable to other Command and Control domains, where a shared information space forms the focus for the work taking place.”
“The UNC Collaboratory project is concerned with both the process of collaboration and with computer systems to support that process. Here, we describe a component of the Artifact-Based Collaboration (ABC) system, called the Matrix, that provides an infrastructure in which existing single-user applications can be incorporated with few, if any, changes and used collaboratively. We take the position that what is needed is not new tools but better infrastructure for using familiar single-user tools collectively. The paper discusses the Matrix architecture, a Virtual Screen component, and generic functions that provide conferencing, hyperlinking, and recording of users' actions for all applications.”
“Future advances in networking and storage will enable a wide spectrum of computer mediated structured collaborations among individuals. In this paper, we present a model that can capture diverse types of structured collaborations. The model combines both efficiency and power via a hierarchy of three abstractions, at the lowest level of which are streams for media communication modulated by access rights of participants within collaborations. The higher two levels of abstractions are sessions, which represent collections of semantically related media streams, and conferences, which represent temporally related sequences of sessions. Using these abstractions, the model supports unification of both synchronous and asynchronous collaborations, sophisticated access control, and intra-group and inter-group collaborations, yielding a powerful set of building blocks for constructing multimedia applications and a rich environment for carrying out structured multimedia collaborations.”
“Although talking is an integral part of collaborative activity, there has been little computer support for acquiring and accessing the contents of conversations. Our approach has focused on ubiquitous audio, or the unobtrusive capture of voice interactions in everyday work environments. Because the words themselves are not available for organizing the captured interactions, structure is derived from acoustical information inherent in the stored voice and augmented by user interaction during or after capture. This paper describes applications for capturing and structuring audio from office discussions and telephone calls, and mechanisms for later retrieval of these stored interactions.”
“A major shift is underway in how we think about telephones. For decades, they were used solely for one-to-one, synchronous communication. The increasing use of answering machines and voice messaging, however, is shifting the public perception of telephones, thus opening a space for more innovative applications. Five years from now, some of the most interesting and popular cooperative work applications will probably use telephones as the primary means of access. This paper presents evidence that there are practical phone-based cooperative work applications and describes a set of software tools that facilitate the development of such applications.”
“A virtual environment, which is created by computer graphics and an appropriate user interface, can be used in many application fields, such as teleoperation, telecommunication and real time simulation. Furthermore, if this environment could be shared by multiple users, there would be more potential applications. Discussed in this paper is a case study of building a prototype of a cooperative work environment using a virtual environment, where more than two people can solve problems cooperatively, including design strategies and implementing issues. An environment where two operators can directly grasp, move or release stereoscopic computer graphics images by hand is implemented. The system is built by combining head position tracking stereoscopic displays, hand gesture input devices and graphics workstations. Our design goal is to utilize this type of interface for a future teleconferencing system. In order to provide good interactivity for users, we discuss potential bottlenecks and their solutions. The system allows two users to share a virtual environment and to organize 3-D objects cooperatively.”
“The paper presents some novel concepts and models derived from Activity Theory for to identify a potential CSCW application. It is suggested that the six elements of the structure of the activity concept might be useful for differentiating between areas of support, and that three levels of support are needed in order to cope with both routine and emergent features of cooperative work situations. Thus a 3x6 support type classification is formed and its usefulness studied by means of a real-world example. A work situation is analyzed, problems identified and possible areas of support defined. A temporary solution is produced and, by evaluating it, possible directions for the development of a "real" new CSCW application and the usefulness of the classification are discussed.”
“This paper explores the meanings and dynamics of interaction and cooperation in professional activities in the context of middle school teaching. What makes schools particularly interesting and challenging contexts for both the conduct and study of cooperative work is the high degree of temporal constraint and spatial isolation in which teachers must perform their work. The reported research is based on a comparative study of teacher collaboration in two schools, each of which utilized a different strategy for supporting collaborative work amidst these striking constraints. By focusing on the interplay of constructed meanings, history, and temporal and spatial structures which enable and constrain collaboration, we gain a new view of the CSCW enterprise.”
“This paper focuses on time-management as a cooperative task. Based on an analysis of the cultural complexity of the timing of surgery in a large clinic, possibilities of using computer-support for strengthening the sharing of information and resources as well as participation in decision-making are discussed.”
“This paper reviews the design and implementation of several video telephony systems at Bellcore as a case study in iterative design. In contrast to single user computer applications, communication systems consists of both the interconnection technology and the people who are interconnected. From a user's point of view, the capabilities provided by the system, the rules for its use, and its reaction to their actions depend jointly on what its developers implemented and how other users behave. This fact has wide-ranging implications for system design, use, and evaluation. In reviewing our design experience, we identify four dilemmas for iterative design that flow from the inherently social nature of communication systems. We conclude with methodological and theoretical suggestions to supplement conventional iterative design principles as applied to communications systems.”
“One of the major problems in cooperative software development is that of maintaining certain global consistency properties. Broadcasting changes that have already occurred, as many programming environments do, will not resolve this problem. We argue in favor of an architecture where the announcements deal with impending or proposed changes as well as changes that have already occurred. One can then formulate consistency requirements on the system that are maintained "lazily" as it evolves. Such an architecture can support a wider range of cooperative processes than traditional software development environments. This paper describes the design and implementation of this architecture.”
“Ensemble is an X-Windows based, object-oriented graphics editor based on the tgif graphics editor from UCLA. It relies on Unix 4.3bsd sockets and can be used as a stand-alone program or as an application in the University of Florida's distributed conferencing system (DCS). It uses implicitly placed write locks for concurrency control, with locks placed when an object is selected and removed when it is deselected. Multiple users may read or edit a file concurrently, with all users receiving updates whenever a lock is removed. Pointers are shared by mutual consent, so that users may collaborate to the degree desired. Ensemble is a prototype lock-based approach to object-oriented concurrent graphics editing.”
“The ability to undo operations is a standard feature in most single-user interactive applications. However, most current collaborative applications that allow several users to work simultaneously on a shared document lack undo capabilities; those which provide undo generally provide only a global undo, in which the last change made by anyone to a document is undone, rather than allowing users to individually reverse their own changes. In this paper, we propose a general framework for undoing actions in collaborative systems. The framework takes into account the possibility of conflicts between different users' actions that may prevent a normal undo. The framework also allows selection of actions to undo based on who performed them, where they occurred, or any other appropriate criterion.”
“This paper describes ActionWorkflow approach to workflow management technology: a design methodology and associated computer software for the support of work in organizations. The approach is based on theories of communicative activity as language/action and has been developed in a series of systems for coordination among users of networked computers. This paper describes the approach, gives an example of its application, and shows the architecture of a workflow management system based on it.”
“This paper describes a series of tests of the generality of a "radically tailorable" tool for cooperative work. Users of this system can create applications by combining and modifying four kinds of building blocks: objects, views, agents, and links. We found that user-level tailoring of these primitives can provide most of the functionality found in well-known cooperative work systems such as gIBIS, Coordinator, Lotus Notes, and Information Lens. These primitives, therefore, appear to provide an elementary "tailoring language" out of which a wide variety of integrated information management and collaboration applications can be constructed by end users.”
“Exploratory collaboration occurs in domains where the structure and process of group work evolves as an intrinsic part of the collaborative activity. Traditional database and hypertext structural models do not provide explicit support for collaborative exploration. The EGRET framework defines both a data and a process model along with supporting analysis techniques that provide novel support for exploratory collaboration. To do so, the EGRET framework breaks with traditional notions of the relationship between schema and instance structure. In EGRET, schema structure is viewed as a representation of the current state of consensus among collaborators, from which instance structure is allowed to depart in a controlled fashion. This paper discusses the issues of exploratory collaboration, the EGRET approach to its support, and the current status of this research.”
“Complex organizations are characterized by distributed decision making, and require a sharing of perspectives among distributed decision makers if they are to coordinate activity and adapt to changing circumstances. This paper explains the process of perspective taking and its roles in human communication, mutual trust, and organizational learning. SPIDER is a software environment for enriching communication among managers by improving their ability to represent and exchange understandings of the situations they face. Cognitive maps linked to underlying assumptions are used as a basis for sharing their perspectives and enabling coordination of distributed decision making.”
“Group facilitation is a dynamic process that involves managing relationships between people, tasks and technology, as well as structuring tasks and contributing to the effective accomplishment of the meetings outcomes. This is a difficult problem that becomes even more difficult as group work is geographically distributed. This paper provides a comprehensive framework, in the form of a meeting model, that defines the many activities that surround group work. We show that in existing systems support for facilitation is low and based on the level of facilitator control, we identify facilitation functions and suggest a rational for prioritizing them. With this in hand, we are designing and implementing a prototype facilitation system to support group activities in a distributed environment.”
“We-Met (Window Environment-Meeting Enhancement Tools) is a prototype pen-based tool designed to support both the communication and information retrieval needs of small group meetings. The first part of this paper describes We-Met and the rationale for its design, the second discusses findings from an empirical study of the use of We-Met for group communication, and the third discusses findings from a study of the search and retrieval of information from non-computer based meetings conducted to provide insight into how to facilitate these activities in We-Met. The paper identifies potential communication process gains due to the pen-based interface style, opportunities for the facilitation of information retrieval in a pen-based tool, and functionality/interface challenges in the design of a tool to support small group meetings.”
“This paper describes the evolution of a novel shared drawing medium that permits co-workers in two different locations to draw with color markers or with electronic pens and software tools while maintaining direct eye contact and the ability to employ natural gestures. We describe the evolution from ClearBoard-1 (based on a video drawing technique) to ClearBoard-2 (which incorporates TeamPaint, a multi-user paint editor). Initial observations based on use and experimentation are reported. Further experiments are conducted with ClearBoard-0 (a simple mockup), with ClearBoard-1, and with an actual desktop as a control. These experiments verify the increase of eye contact and awareness of collaborator's gaze direction in ClearBoard environments where workspace and co-worker images compete for attention.”
“This paper reports findings from ongoing examinations into the social organisation of research laboratories. Two case studies are discussed, and it is suggested that although there are differences between the two sites, commonalities are shown in their hierarchical nature and in the status of researchers. It is argued that researchers form a professional group with all that entails in terms of rights and privileges. More generally it is argued that the social organisation of research laboratories is resistant to change. The consequences of this on the testing and development of systems that have the potential to transform hierarchical relations is briefly discussed and how this resistance and its causes differentiate research laboratories from other work places remarked.”
“This paper investigates CSCW aspects of large-scale technical projects based on a case study of a specific Danish engineering company and uncovers challenges to CSCW applications in this setting. The company is responsible for management and supervision of one of the worlds largest tunnel/bridge construction projects. Our primary aim is to determine requirements on CSCW as they unfold in this concrete setting as opposed to survey and laboratory investigations. The requirements provide feedback to product development both on specific functionality and as a long term vision for CSCW in such settings. The initial qualitative analysis identified a number of bottlenecks in daily work, where support for cooperation is needed. Examples of bottlenecks are: sharing materials, issuing tasks, and keeping track of task status. Grounded in the analysis, cooperative design workshops based on scenarios of future work situations were established to investigate the potential of different CSCW technologies in this setting. In the workshops, mock-ups and prototypes were used to support end-users in assessing CSCW technologies based on concrete, hands-on experiences. The workshops uncovered several challenges. First, support for sharing materials would require a huge body of diverse materials to be integrated, for example into a hypermedia network. Second, daily work tasks are event driven and plans change too rapidly for people to register them on a computer. Finally, tasks are closely coupled to materials being processed thus a coordination tool should integrate facilities for managing materials.”
“The implementation of networking technology in work settings offers numerous opportunities for improving the transmission of information and the sharing of resources within and between organizations. Its success in integrating distributed working activities, however, rests on how well the users of a network can coordinate their activities with respect to each other. This paper examines the communicative and interactive processes that take place when a typical breakdown occurs in a networked environment. A detailed analysis is presented which interprets the events that unfold in relation to the socio-cognitive issues of shared understanding, the transmission of knowledge and distributed problem-solving.”
“Recent accounts of computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems in organizations are mixed about the success of CMC. While some organizations eagerly embrace CMC systems for their employees, and support systems with thousands of users and multiple uses, other organizations have refused their employees access to CMC systems, or removed such systems after they have become established in use. Why the wide disparity in organizational support of CMC? We show the importance of differences in institutional dependencies on CMC support of individuals' "weak-tie" relationships for explaining differences in willingness to support CMC infrastructure. We then examine the downstream implications of maintenance of weak ties via CMC infrastructure for individuals and institutions.”
“This paper explores the introduction of groupware into an organization to understand the changes in work practices and social interaction facilitated by the technology. The results suggest that people's mental models and organizations' structure and culture significantly influence how groupware is implemented and used. Specifically, in the absence of mental models that stressed its collaborative nature, groupware was interpreted in terms of familiar personal, stand-alone technologies such as spreadsheets. Further, the culture and structure provided few incentives or norms for cooperating or sharing expertise, hence the groupware on its own was unlikely to engender collaboration. Recognizing the central influence of these cognitive and organizational elements is critical to developers, researchers, and practitioners of groupware.”
“An understanding of the implementation process of CSCW in organizations can contribute to the design, testing, evaluation, and effective use of this technology. A dynamic, interconnected model is presented which is sensitive to the user, organizational, and technological context of the implementation process. The model is then used to structure observations of the implementation of a videoconference system for regular meetings among senior managers in a large decentralized organization. Knowledge of the context of the implementation was essential in order to interpret the observations, outcome of the implementation, and pertinence of the videoconference terminal design.”
“Work activities have a highly situated nature. As a result, it is not possible to classify activities exactly, since they tend to evolve as they progress. This raises a significant problem for work support tools: how to address the trade off between active support, which requires knowledge of the activity at hand, and flexibility, which is a measure of how well a system can respond to changes in activities. We have been developing the ConversationBuilder, a support tool that is intended to provide flexible, active support for (collaborative) work activities. This paper overviews the ConversationBuilder, discusses both the kinds of support it provides and its architecture, and illustrates its use through an example.”
“While researchers strive to develop new systems to enhance the cooperative document editing process, many authors already collaborate, using existing text processing systems to produce papers and reports. Using these tools, one of the most time-consuming and error-prone collaboration tasks is maintaining a consistent shared bibliography. We have designed and implemented the BIBDB system to simplify collaborative authoring by providing a shared, cooperatively maintained bibliographic database. BIBDB uses existing networking technology and merges seamlessly into the LATEX/BIBTEX text processing system [5]. The contributions of BIBDB include a set of user interface policies and software implementation techniques that support cooperative database maintenance.”
“The interaction of various design decisions and the communication of the rationale for decisions between designers are two problems that have not been solved by current systems supporting design. Through the observation of computer network designers we have developed a framework, system architecture, and prototype implementation for supporting this type of communication within an evolving information space centered around the artifact being designed. The importance of our approach is in the integration of the design of the artifact and the communication between the designers. XNETWORK, a knowledge-based design environment for computer network design, incorporates this artifact-centered communication as a method for the easy addition of network designers' understanding about the design task.”
“This paper presents our approach to the design of groupware toolkits for real-time work, and how the design is instantiated in our toolkit, GROUPKIT. The design is based on both the technical underpinnings necessary for real-time groupware, and on user-centered features identified by existing CSCW human factors work. We also present three strategies for building GROUPKIT's components. First, an extendible, object-oriented run-time architecture supports managing distributed processes and the communication between them. Second, transparent overlays offer a convenient method for adding general components to various groupware applications, for example supporting gestures via multiple cursors and annotation via sketching. Third, open protocols allow the groupware designer to create a wide range of interface and interaction policies, accommodating group differences in areas such as conference registration and floor control.”
“Access control is an indispensable part of any information sharing system. Collaborative environments introduce new requirements for access control, which cannot be met by using existing models developed for non-collaborative domains. We have developed a new access control model for meeting these requirements. The model is based on a generalized editing model of collaboration, which assumes that users interact with a collaborative application by concurrently editing its data structures. It associates fine-grained data displayed by a collaborative application with a set of collaboration rights and provides programmers and users a multi-dimensional, inheritance-based scheme for specifying these rights. The collaboration rights include traditional read and write rights and several new rights such as viewing rights and coupling rights. The inheritance-based scheme groups subjects, protected objects, and access rights; allows each component of an access specification to refer to both groups and individual members; and allows a specific access definition to override a more general one.”
“Multi-user applications support multiple users performing a related task in a distributed context. This paper describes Weasel, a system for implementing multi-user applications. Weasel is based on the relational view model, in which user interfaces are specified as relations between program data structures and views on a display. These relations are specified in RVL, a high-level, declarative language. Under this model, an application program and a set of RVL specifications are used to generate a multi-user application in which all issues of network communication, concurrency, synchronization, and view customization are handled automatically. These programs have a scalable distribution property, where adding new participants to a session does not greatly degrade over-all system performance. Weasel has been implemented, and was used to generate all examples in this paper.”
“Computational email -- the embedding of programs within electronic mail messages -- is proposed as a technology that may help to solve some of the key problems in deploying successful applications for computer-supported cooperative work. In particular, computational email promises to alleviate the problem of remote installation at separately-administered sites, the problem of getting users to "buy in" to new applications, and the problem of extremely heterogeneous user interaction environments. In order for computational email to be practical, however, key problems of security and portability must be addressed, problems for which this research offers new solutions. This paper outlines the promise of this new technology, the solutions to the key technical problems, and the areas where further work and application development are needed.”
“Most existing groupware products are either too passive or very intrusive. They either passively wait for user action or actively interfere with normal workstation activity by intruding on the user's screen; they are one-sided push or pull mechanisms. A system for computer-mediated interaction, Active Mail obviates the dilemma with a protocol which enables a groupware application to involve a new user in a way that is non-intrusive, tolerates delayed response, and requires little effort on the user's part. Active Mail piggybacks on ordinary electronic mail, retaining all the features that have made it so successful. Active Mail messages are used to establish persistent interactive connections among a group of users. Receivers of Active Mail messages can interact with the sender, with future recipients, and with remote, distributed multi-user applications. Groupware applications realized within the Active Mail framework include a text conversation tool, a collaborative writing facility with a floor passing protocol and revision control management, an interactive meeting scheduler, and some distributed multi-user interactive games. In this paper we describe the architecture of Active Mail, present some of its applications, and discuss our preliminary experience with it.”
“In this paper, we introduce ephemeral interest groups for supporting informal communication. Ephemeral interest groups are electronic discussion groups that, in contrast to bulletin boards and the like, are short-lived and ad hoc. They are designed as a medium for informal discussions of items broadcast to a wider community. We have implemented a prototype system to explore ephemeral interest groups. We discuss the goals of the system, characterize its evolution over the last ten months of deployment, and sketch our plans for future developments.”
“This study reports how the introduction of a simple collaborative tool changed the way groups of people did an interesting problem solving task, the design of an automatic post office. The designs produced by the groups supported with this tool were of higher quality than those who worked with conventional whiteboard and paper and pencil. They liked the process a little less, probably because it was a new tool. But, more surprising was the fact that those supported with the tool did less extensive exploration of the design space. Our expectation was just the opposite. It appears that the tool helped the supported group keep more focused on the core issues in the emerging design, to waste less time on less important topics, and to capture what was said as they went.”
“Earlier studies of computerized brainstorming showed that by restructuring group processes, groups can overcome well known performance deficits that groups suffer relative to nominal groups. These earlier tools are essentially computerized versions of Nominal Group Technique. We examined the ability of a simple, unstructured parallel editor to facilitate idea generation in face to face groups. Our results showed that parallel interacting groups outperformed serial interacting groups, and parallel interacting groups did not differ significantly from nominal, non interacting groups. Thus, an informal tool that allows parallel work is an effective way to increase idea generation in real interacting groups.”
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Computer programs emerge as the outcome of complex human processes of cognition, communication and negotiation, which serve to establish the meaningful embedding of the computer system in its intended use context.
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Mar 20th, 2010
