Effects of Awareness Support on Groupware Usability

Gutwin, C. and Greenberg, S. (1998)
Effects of Awareness Support on Groupware Usability. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - ACM CHI'98. ACM Press, pages 511-518, April 18-23. Earlier version as Report 1997-605-07, September.

View Publication and Related Materials

PDF PaperPDF Paper (1998-EffectsAwareness.CHI.pdf)

Abstract

Collaboration in current real-time groupware systems is often an awkward and clumsy process. We hypothesize that better support for workspace awareness can improve the usability of these shared computational workspaces. We conducted an experiment that compared people's performance on two versions of a groupware interface. The interfaces used workspace miniatures to provide different levels of support for workspace awareness. The basic miniature showed information only about the local user, and the enhanced miniature showed the location and activity of others in the workspace as well. In two of three task types tested, completion times were lower with increased awareness support, and in one task type, communication was more efficient. Participants also greatly preferred the awareness-enhanced system. The study provides empirical evidence of, and underlying reasons for, the value of supporting workspace awareness in groupware.

Bibtex entry

@INPROCEEDINGS { 1998-EffectsAwareness.CHI,
CLASS = { CONFARTICLE{} },
AUTHOR = { Gutwin, C. and Greenberg, S. },
TITLE = { Effects of Awareness Support on Groupware Usability },
BOOKTITLE = { Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - ACM CHI'98 },
MONTH = { April 18-23 },
PAGES = { 511-518 },
YEAR = { 1998 },
PUBLISHER = { ACM Press },
NOTE = { Earlier version as Report 1997-605-07, September },
}