cscw and groupware adoption, use, and design jonathan grudin microsoft research...
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CSCW and GroupwareAdoption, Use, and Design
Jonathan Grudin
Microsoft Research
http://research.microsoft.com/~jgrudin
Organization of Lecture
My background
Background of the topic
Behavioral challenges in supporting groups
Studies of technology adoption and use Virtual teamwork at Boeing Group calendar use at Sun, Microsoft, Boeing Streaming media use at Microsoft
A perspective on the future
Groupware Features and Categories
Integrated groupware technologies
Communication
Information sharing
Coordination
Real time Asynchronous
• A/V conferencing• Telephone
• Whiteboards• Meeting facilition• Application sharing• MUDs & CVEs
• Floor control• Session
management
• E-mail• Voice mail• Fax
• Document management
• Threaded discussions
• Hypermedia
• Workflow & project mgmt
• Concurrency control
• Shared calendars
Groupware Has Been Slow To Arrive
The Best Opportunity for Groupware
Places where materials and tools are primarily digital:
World Wide Web
Lotus Notes
Integrated mail and calendars
Mobile computing
Desktop conferencing
Specialized task domains
Research and Development Contexts
Organization
Information SystemsMainframes, Intranets
Internal
Develop- ment
DP/MIS/IT
1965-
Project
GDSS/WorkflowMinicomputers, Networks
Contract & Internal
Develop- ment
SE/OA
1975-
Small Group
Computer-Mediated Communication
Networked PCs, Workstations
Product &Telecom
Develop- ment
CSCW
1985-
Individual
ApplicationsPC
Product
Develop- ment
HFS/CHI
1980-
CSCW
Community/Commerce
Internet, World Wide Web
1995-
Geographic Perspectives, Past & Present
North America & Asia Europe
Empirical approach Theoretical approach
Vendor company, User organization,product development in-house development
Small-group application Organizational system communication, coordination, shared focus, competing priorities, interface differentiates functionality is central
Today, a growing shared focus on ‘the global village’
Challenges Based on Social and Behavioral Factors
Effort/benefit disparities
Poor intuition
Critical Mass & The Tragedy of the Commons
Social and motivational factors
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Low-frequency events
Exception handling
Groupware and social dynamics: Eight Challenges for developers.
Communications of the ACM, January 1994.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Management
With a lawyer Without lawyer
Union
With a Union: 44% Union: 67%lawyer Mgmt: 36% Mgmt: 23%
Without Union: 27% Union: 56%lawyer Mgmt: 63% Mgmt: 44%
Arbitration Cases (from New York Times article)
Should unions seek legal representation? Should management?Average disputed amount won by each side (10% deducted forlawyers fees).
Challenges Based on Social and Behavioral Factors
Effort/benefit disparities
Poor intuition
Critical Mass & The Tragedy of the Commons
Social and motivational factors
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Low-frequency events
Exception handling
Groupware and social dynamics: Eight Challenges for developers.
Communications of the ACM, January 1994.
Behavioral Issues: Videoconferencing
Meeting behaviors are highly practiced
Behavioral Issues: Videoconferencing
Introducing a camera and microphone
Brief Summary of General Findings
Most groupware fails
Some virtual collocation technologies succeeding but use is often painfully suboptimal
Lack of awareness of others’ context is recurring problem
Audio quality is of underestimated importance
Facilitation and incentives can be key but are usually not understood or practiced
Successful groupware rollout may be top-downbut adoption is often bottom-up
One major source of problems in design and use: patterns of use vary with roles
Boeing’s Push for Virtual Teamwork
Merger of Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas, Rockwell
Shorter, more volatile planning cycles
Coordination with subcontractors (and contractors)
Technologies Examined
NetMeeting (free desktop conferencing software)
TeleFly (internally developed distributed 3-D modeling)
TeleFly
NetMeeting Use
Method Observed NetMeeting-supported meetings
Interviewed participants Experimented with technology use in one meeting
Results NetMeeting successfully supports distributed teams
Example: Manufacturing/scientist problem-solving forum
Satisfaction is lower than face-to-face Time and patience lost due to not understanding who is
present, how they are reacting, what they see and do
Problems due to technology not perceived as such
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Meeting Date
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Fig. 3. Scientific Team attendance during technology phases
Face-to-face meetingA
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Team Attendance by Technology Phase
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Face-to-face meeting
Meeting Date
Fig. 5. Total sites for Scientific Team during technology phases
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Number of Sites by Technology Phase
Distribution in Seattle Area by Site
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Auburn
Bellevue
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Fig. 4. Change in attendance distribution in greater Seattle by site
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GreaterSeattle(remote)Sites
Audioconferencing
NMFace-to-face meeting
Satisfaction: FTF vs distributed meetings
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CR CR-CR CR-CR CR CR-Office CR CR-Office CR
TeleFly Use
Method Observations of TeleFly & FlyThru design reviews
One project observed at Puget Sound, Long Beach sites
Interviews with participants
Results As with NetMeeting, succeeds sub-optimally
(Poor) audio quality has large effect Lack of document sharing slows meetings Reduced awareness of other participant presence and
activity is constant frustration
Shared Calendars
1980-1990: Rarely used Management mandate needed?
Early 1990’s: Use spreads
Study of shared calendars at Sun, MS, Boeing Interviews with over 100 users 2500 responses to online survey at Sun and MS
Shared Calendars
1980-1990: Rarely used Management mandate needed?
Early 1990’s: Use spreads
Study of shared calendars at Sun, MS, Boeing Interviews with over 100 users 2500 responses to online survey at Sun and MS
Results Bottom-up adoption Infrastructure, features, interface are important Default settings are influential Use heavily based on role
Use Varies With Role
1. Individual contributors Live at desks, reminders popular Meeting invitations an incentive to use Printing unimportant Privacy can be a concern, often unwarranted
2. Management and OAs “Live from calendars,” reminders unnecessary Meeting invitations very useful Printing important Benefits of very open sharing far outweigh privacy
3. Executives Live on the road, schedule far in advance Meeting invitations dangerous Printing very important Privacy very important
Calendars Used to Bridge Distance
“We had a very important meeting with the Japanese this morning. And, I was giving my boss a briefing on it. And we were wondering, what happens next? And I knew there was some other thing after we’ve greeted the Japanese. They were going to visit a Boeing executive up in Everett. And we were wondering who was going to be there. And I thought, gee I wonder if Rick Hale is going to be in that meeting. He’s our customer up in Everett. So, I bring up his calendar. And what when I want to look at his calendar, is that we had our briefing with the Japanese up here, he did not attend that meeting. But, then he’s in the wrap-up, the executive briefing. And now we are wondering, ‘when could we expect to hear back from Rick on the what the result of that briefing was?’ It’s very important for our project. And, so I see what Rick is going to be doing. I see that he’s going to have a meeting with Harry Swenson, who is at a higher level of executives -- he’s in charge of IS for all of Everett -- and Miyaki, one of the key seven people, he was the ranking Japanese official. And then, I can see that. During this meeting, we had some question about push back from SEB and how the internal Boeing dynamic is going to work. And he’s got a meeting with Susan Enders to review SEB implementation. I get a lot of insight into the flow, the dynamics, and what’s going on. Furthermore, I can even see that he’s going to be entertaining the Japanese visitors at his home this evening. And I wonder, ‘when are we going to be actually be able to contact Rick and find out what’s happening?’ I check his calendar for tomorrow, and I see that he’s got the day off. Then, if I want to find out any information, I have to either wait ‘til Monday, or get it from some other source. That gives me tremendous insight. It’s almost like a virtual world thing. It’s a sort of thing that I could find out by walking down the hall and chatting with the secretary, but he’s 30 miles away. Yet I feel that I am in the flow of what’s happening.”
MSR Collaboration & Multimedia Group
Anoop Gupta, David Bargeron, Jonathan Grudin,
Li-wei He, Gavin Jancke, Yong Rui
MSTE and MURL: Online Seminars
Time Compression, Skimming, Indexing, Browsing
MRAS: Multimedia Annotations and Authoring
Flatland and Telep: Telepresentations
MSTE Online Presentations
Logs of ~30K sessions involving over 5K users
Some results: On-demand audience greater than live audience 60% < 5 minutes Viewers jump around video Initial portions much more likely to be watched
Presentations will be designed differently in future Present key messages early in talk Present key messages early in slide Use meaningful slide titles Reveal talk structure in slide titles Consider post-processing talk for on-line viewers
Designing Online Presentations
Logs of ~30K sessions involving over 5K users
Some results: On-demand audience greater than live audience 60% < 5 minutes Viewers jump around video Initial portions much more likely to be watched
Presentations will be designed differently in future Present key messages early in talk Present key messages early in slide Use meaningful slide titles Reveal talk structure in slide titles Consider post-processing talk for on-line viewers
Summary
Be wary of intuition
Acquire new skills and methods
Anticipate obstacles to obtaining user contact
Recognize needs of different group members
Enhance interfaces where the burden falls
Consider the process of use
Consider organizational impacts
Plan for a longer development process
Trends
Organization-wide acquisition
Sales that include consulting services
Extended single-user applications
Adoption considered in design
Research into group activity
A New Metaphor
Three ways to think of computers
1. The computer as a computer
2. The computer as a container
3. The computer as a window
From Container to Window
New York Times, 19 May 1995:
A man has been arrested in Los Angeles for possessing 80 computerized images of child pornography... The prosecutor said, “Certainly if you see something flicker across your computer monitor, then you are not in possession. But I think if you go to the difficulty of downloading then it's yours. This is really no different than if a suspect stored these pictures in his closet. The computer is just another storage area. ”
Negotiated Ownership of Visible Property
Liberating and Constraining Influences
Print and language: the 300-year freeze“The written style, once it has seized upon a form,
retains it more exclusively, and may then weight the scales in its favor.” (Bloomfield, Language, 1933)
“The main influence of the written language is a conservative one—it acts as a brake, inhibiting the general acceptance of many changes that arise in the spoken language.” (Samuels, 1972)
“Spelling has blocked or reversed many sound changes in English.” (Antilla, 1989)
Dictionaries, grammar books, and schoolteachers Radio, television and film
The Problem of Exception-Handling
Do standard procedures describe real practice?
Suchman (1983)
Problem-solving in a “routine” process
Dourish (2000)
A process-oriented bank
“Standard procedures” have many uses
Visibility ‘Desituates’ Action
Bellcore netnews archive search
Visibility ‘Desituates’ Action
Bellcore netnews archive search
“We were discovering things about our colleagues
that we didn’t want to know.”
— Jim Hollan
Local activity becomes global activity
irregularity is difficult to ignore
inconsistency is evident
chaos is visible
More rapid transmission
When It Comes To ‘Localizing’ Information, Nuance Matters
Bill Gates, New York Times (CyberTimes), 26 March 1997:
...
“But when international versions of Encarta eventually go up on the Internet, our policy of presenting ‘local, educated reality’ will be called into question. Some readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality.
“A Korean reader may gain access to Japanese Encarta and note that the East Sea is called the Sea of Japan. Some French readers may be offended by how much media is devoted to the English article on the Battle of Waterloo, in
which Napoleon was finally defeated.”
Parole Board Site Stirs Controversy
New York Times (CyberTimes), 7 November 1996: Executive Director of New Jersey Parole Board:
“There is no privacy issue here. There is no information that could be more public. An inmate is sentenced in open court. The length of his sentence is a public record, as is the fact that he can earn parole in a lesser amount of time.”
Spokesman for American Correction Association: Those who read the site and then decided to comment on cases to the parole board “would not necessarily have all the background that the parole board does on the case. The parole board would have a whole file of information about education programs, work release and other programs the inmate had been involved in, information not included in a six-line description on the Web site. The question becomes how much information is enough, and how much is it a public right-to-know question versus a confidentiality issue?”
Tokyo Exchange Says Internet’s Too Fast
Financial Times, 5 December 1995 (Edupage summary)
“Because of ‘insider trading’ restrictions that ban company officials and media representatives from dealing in securities for 12 hours after they learn earnings results, the Tokyo Stock Exchange wants companies to stop sending such results over the Internet right after they're announced in news conferences.”
Desituated Action and Social Organization
What will happen when:
All violations are visible?
All irregularities are visible?
All inconsistencies are visible?
Making requests is quick and easy?
Desituated Action and Social Organization
What will happen when:
All violations are visible?
All irregularities are visible?
All inconsistencies are visible?
Making requests is quick and easy?
New social practices will develop.