ucalgary.ca
Artifact Awareness for Distributed Groups
through screen and window sharing
In a co-located work environment, people's desktops (both physical and digital) are easily visible to others walking by. Being able to see who is around and what they are working on creates opportunities for collaboration. For example, seeing artifacts such as documents or pictures on another's desk can trigger conversation.
In distributed groups however, this artifact awareness is difficult to maintain. When people are working together from different locations, they don't have the same awareness cues that co-located people have, so it's harder for them to move into interaction.
To address this problem, we designed an awareness tool that uses screen sharing to provide information about other people's artifacts. People see others' screens in miniature at the edge of their display, can selectively raise a larger view of that screen to get more detail, and can engage in remote pointing if desired.
Initial experiences from informal evaluations with an internal research group as well as an external industry group show that people use the tool for several purposes: to maintain awareness of what others are doing, to project a certain image of themselves, to monitor progress and coordinate joint tasks, to help determine when another person can be interrupted, and to engage in serendipitous conversation and collaboration. People also balance awareness with privacy by using several privacy protection strategies built into our system.
Researchers
Kimberly Tee (MSc research)
Saul Greenberg (Supervisor)
Carl Gutwin