Groupware

Thinking about groups, collaboration, and communication

Project Part 3

See me if you need resources for your evaluation– Room, equipment, etc.

Part 3 – due DECEMBER 3– Describe what you did EXACTLY (include all materials)– Present the data you collected (tables, charts, lists of

issues, etc.)– Discuss what the data means – how you did with each

usability criteria, what were issues, etc.– Present suggestions for next round of

improvements/redesign– What you learned, what you would do differently, etc.

Presentation

Dec. 3 & 8 in class, sign up on Wiki 15 minutes Parts:

– Motivation– Requirements

learning from users– Design

learning from prototyping– Evaluation– Conclusions– Q&A

Include all parts, but focus on evaluation in particular

Computer supported cooperative work

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 -multiple users– Psychology -sociology

-communication

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

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

Different timeSame time

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

Team room display

Phone call

Video window,wall

Letter

Email

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 – Video/Audio chat– Blogs

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 or video conferencing 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

Goal of groupware is often to establish some common ground and to facilitate understanding and interaction

Multiple people means social issues can impact use or may need to be supported

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

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 groupware 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– 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

Let’s consider: Facebook

Is it groupware? What general types of group features does it

have? How does it differ from blogs? Flickr?

Personal web pages? What features do you think they should add? Why do you think it is so successful? What social issues (good and bad) are

occurring because of Facebook?