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Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
Thinking about groups, collaboration, and communication
Project Part 3
See me if you need resources for your evaluation Room, equipment, etc.
Presentation In-class on Dec. 4 15 minutes total – hard limit Formal and professional Upload slides on Wiki
Presentation
Parts: Motivation Requirements
learning from users Design
learning from prototyping Evaluation Conclusions Q&A
Include all parts, but focus on evaluation in particular
CSCW
Study of how people work together and how technology affects this
Support the social processes of work, often among geographically separated people
HCI so far: CSCW: Individual use ? Psychology ?
Examples
The “system” becomes the moderator between people
There are now many collaborations, like: Scientists collaborating on a technical issue Authors editing a document together Programmers debugging a system concurrently Workers collaborating over a shared video
conferencing application Buyers and sellers meeting on eBay
CS C W?
The Second “C” Group work not always cooperative or
collaborative
The “W” Not just about “work” anymore Support the social processes of a group
of people communicating or collaborating on anything
Examples
Awareness of people in your family, community, physical space...
Mobile communication Online discussions, blogs Sharing photos, stories, experiences Recommender systems Playing games
Groupware
Software specifically designed to support group working or playing with cooperative requirements in mind
NOT just tools for communication Groupware can be classified by
when and where the participants are working the function it performs for cooperative work
Specific and difficult problems with groupware implementation and evaluation
The Time/Space Matrix
Classify groupware by: when the participants are working,
at the same time or not where the participants are working,
at the same place or not
Common names for axes:time:
synchronous/asynchronousplace:
co-located/remote
differenttime
sametime
sameplace
differentplace
Applied to “traditional” technology
differenttime
sametime
sameplace
differentplace
face-to-faceconversation, whiteboard
phone call
post-it note
letter
Applied to computer technology
Time
Place
Synchronous
Co-located
Asynchronous
Remote
Face-to-face
E-meeting room
Post-it note
Argument. tool
Phone call
Video window,wall
Letter
A More-fleshed Out Taxonomy
A typical space/time matrix (after Baecker, Grudin, Buxton, & Greenberg, 1995, p.742)
Styles of Groupware Systems
Computer-mediated communication
Meeting and decision support systems
Shared applications and tools
Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) Aids
Examples Email, Chat, virtual worlds Desktop videoconferencing --
Examples: CUSee-Me MS NetMeeting SGI InPerson
Video/Audio chat
CMC applications
Support a wide range of communication needs
Allow large number of people to quickly and easily communicate
Can be combined with other activities and systems
Lead to many new social conventions and issues
Social implications
Less rich channels – fewer details, higher likelihood of misunderstanding
More anonymous More autonomy, more ability to
control message Can be less intrusive
I’ll IM you before I stop by your office
Food for thought…
Why aren’t videophones more popular?
How and when do you use Instant Messaging? How does this differ from email?
What communication technology do you still want?
Meeting and Decision Support Systems
Examples Corporate decision-support conference
room Provides ways of rationalizing decisions,
voting, presenting cases, etc. Concurrency control is important
Shared computer classroom/cluster Group discussion/design aid tools
Shared Applications and Tools
Shared editors, design tools, etc. Want to avoid “locking” and allow
multiple people to concurrently work on document
Requires some form of contention resolution
How do you show what others are doing?
Social Issues
People bring in different perspectives and views to a collaboration environment
Goal of CSCW systems is often to establish some common ground and to facilitate understanding and interaction
Turn Taking
There are many subtle social conventions about turn taking in an interaction Personal space, closeness Eye contact Gestures Body language Conversation cues
How is turn taking handled in IM?
Geography, Position
In group dynamics, the physical layout of individuals matters a lot “Power positions”
How can you tell power in a videoconference?
Awareness
What is happening? Who is there?
e.g. IM buddy list What has happened
… and why?
How do you use awareness in IM? What other systems have awareness?
Groupware implementation
Often more complicated feedback and network delays architectures for groupware feedthrough and network traffic robustness and scaling
Feedback and network delays
At least 2 network messages + four context switches With protocols 4 or more network messages
screenfeedback
user types
localmachine
client
remotemachine
server
remoteapplication
12 3 4
579 8 6
network
Types of architecture
centralized – single copy of application and data client-server – simplest case master-slave special case of client-server
server merged with one client
replicated – copy on each workstation also called peer-to-peer + local feedback race conditions
Feedthrough & traffic
Need to inform all other clients of changes
Few networks support broadcast messages, so …
n participants n–1 network messages!
Solution: increase granularity reduce frequency of feedback but …
poor feedthrough loss of shared context
Trade-off: timeliness vs. network traffic
Evaluation
Evaluating the usability and utility of CSCW tools is quite challenging Need more participants Logistically difficult Apples - oranges
Often use field studies and ethnographic evaluations to assist
Groupware and Social Dynamics: Eight Challenges for Developers By Jonathan Grudin (now at Microsoft) http://www.ics.uci.edu/~grudin/Papers/CACM94/cacm94.html
Groupware Challenges (Grudin)
Who does work vs. who gets benefit The system may require extra effort for
people not really receiving benefit
Critical mass prisoner’s dilemma Need enough people before system is
successful
More Grudin challenges
Social, political, and motivational factors Outside factors can affect system
success
No “standard procedures” Many procedures and exceptions when
it comes to groups interacting
More Grudin challenges
Infrequent features How often do we actually use
groupware anyway? Solution: add groupware features to
existing individual software
Evaluation is longer, more complicated, less precise
Recommendations
Add group features to existing apps Benefit all group members Start with niches were application is
highly needed Consider evaluation and adoption
early Expect and plan for development
and evaluation to take longer