Awareness and Distributed Collaboration

Awareness and Distributed Collaboration

David Ledo

TL;DRToo Long; Didn’t Read

DISTANCE MATTERSOlson, G. and Olson, J.

Distance Matters• Comparison between collocated and

remote (distributed) collaboration.• Looks at collocated interactions,

distant interactions with contemporary technology and potential future technology.

Collocated Interactions• Same physical location, opportunity

to meet in a common place (e.g. meeting room).

• Assist productivity.• Less feel of disorientation or lack of

context.

Collocated Interactions : Key Aspects

1.Rapid feedback through interaction.

2.Multiple interaction channels beyond verbal communication.• Body language, gestures, etc.

3.Known identity of collaborators


4.Continuous or analog information flow, subtle dimensions. Information can be modulated.

5.Shared local context. Easier socializing and mutual understanding.

6.Subsets of participants, coming and going.


7.Co-reference, joint reference to objects.

8.Individual control, choice of attention focus.

9.Spatiality of reference.

Distant Interactions• Some success stories, yay!

Distant Interactions• Some success stories, yay!• But a lot of failures too…• They looked a lot at video

conferencing.

Distant Interactions: Videos

• Video disambiguates difficulties to understand audio.

• Adds possibility to include gestures and some body language, expressions, etc.

• Person’s apparent size (distance from the display) affects the flow of conversation.

Distant Interactions: Videos

• Edward Hall’s theory of Proxemics.

Figure by Nicolai Marquardt

Success Factors1.Common Ground.

2.Coupling Work

3.Collaboration Readiness

4.Technology Readiness

Common Ground

Success Factors1.Common Ground.

2.Coupling Work

3.Collaboration Readiness

4.Technology Readiness

Future Technologies: What’s to Improve

1.Rapid feedback through interaction.

2.Multiple interaction channels beyond verbal communication.– Body language, gestures, etc.

3.Known identity of collaborators

4.Continuous or analog information flow, subtle dimensions. Information can be modulated.

Future Technologies: What’s Hopeless

1.Common ground.

2.Time zones.

3.Culture.

4.Putting the 3 above together with technology.

DESCRIPTIVE FRAMEWORK: WORKSPACE AWARENESS

Gutwin, C. and Greenberg, S.

Descriptive Framework of Workspace Awareness for Real-Time Groupware

• Long title, long paper.


• Long title, long paper. It puts a lot of stuff together.


• Long title, long paper. It puts a lot of stuff together.

• Feels like: the guide you must follow if you want any form of awareness in your system.

Awareness: Issues

1.What kind of information people keep track of in shared workspaces?

2.How do people gather workspace awareness information?

3.How do people use awareness information in collaboration?

The Awareness Problem: Why

1.Groupware systems generate only a fraction of perceptual information.

2.Interaction with a computational workspace generates less information than physical actions.

3.Groupware systems don’t even present the limited information available to the system.

Awareness: Characteristics

1.Knowledge about the state of an environment bounded by time and space.

2.Maintained and kept up to date.

3.Interaction with the environment maintains awareness.

4.The goal is the task, not to maintain awareness.

Situational Awareness

1.Perceiving relevant elements of the environment.

2.Comprehending these elements.

3.Predicting the state of the elements in the future.

Workspace Awareness• Understanding of other people’s

actions within the workspace.• Focus: only the workspace and

domain task.• No need for high information load or

extreme dynamism.• Real problem we want useful

information!

Maintaining Awareness• Perception-Action Cycle.

What Information Makes Up Workspace Awareness?

• They even made a nice table for us!

What Information Makes Up Workspace Awareness?

• And one for the past.

How is Workspace Awareness Gathered?

• Information is obtained from1. Bodies in the workspace.2. Workspace artifacts.3. Conversations and gestures.

• Mechanisms1. Consequential Communication2. Feedthrough3. Intentional Communication

How is Workspace Awareness Used in Collaboration?

1.Managing Coupling.

2.Simplifying Communication.

3.Coordinating Actions.

4.Prediction.

5.Assistance.

The Big Summary

Interesting Discussion

Things that made me think.

And I’d want to hear from you.

Can We Improve Common Ground?

Do You Think Systems Can Encourage Collaboration More

than Face-to-Face?

Example: Idea Playground

Does Culture Matter?

It does, but think in terms of collocated vs.

distributed interactions.

Should Awareness Try To Emulate the

Real World?We previously said that texting, online chatting and speaking in person were

different in terms of topics, interactions, etc. Should awareness be the same?

Can Awareness Improve Things and

Make Them Preferable for Collaboration?

Chris wrote in his review: “…much of the ‘awareness’ in these systems

are merely UI elements, and don't really solve the problem they purport to solve.”

Awareness and Distributed Collaboration

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