Juho Kim 2009-04-14 CS376: Research Topics in HCI CSCW Juho Kim 2009-04-14 CS376: Research Topics in HCI More time on the third paper, ‘Distance Matters’ Less of ‘social computing’ (to be covered on Thursday) More on pure multi-user / remote / collaboration aspect

Time and space are two important axes in determining the types of groupware.

Beyond Being There Jim Hollan, Scott Stornetta (1992) Imitating face-to-face communication, a sense of ‘being there’, Focus on something face-to-face cannot do. Average Rating: 3.9/ 5 (N=13)

Needs Media Mechanism Needs: human requirements that encourage and facilitate interaction Media: what mediates communication Mechanism: ways to meet informal communication needs enabled by media => We need new mechanisms for new media!

Asynchronous Anonymous Automatic archive Features of new medium. Provides more options in software design perspective. More diversity in software features made possible by these characteristics.

Ephemeral interest groups Discussion boards with topic, comments, and follow-ups. Meant to last only as long as people are interested. Other students’ comments: what’s the point of being ephemeral? Brothers et al. Supporting Information Communication via Ephemeral Interest Groups. CSCW 1992.

Electronic persona – profile, avatar Matching interests based on profile Other students’ comments: dating service, chatroom, facebook

Anonymity – malicious comments, infringement of privacy Example in Korea – celebrities suing people who wrote malicious comments

Archiving of life experiences: lifelogging application MyLifeBits Various types of data archived, made available for searching: benefit of digitalized media

What’s the value of ‘Beyond Being There’ applications? What unique benefits can we get from having beyond being there applications? Easy access to rich information Better feedback / archive / search of information More synergy in sharing with others More diversity in ways we interact (apart from face-to-face mimicking audio and video)

how can we overcome them? What are shortcomings and how can we overcome them? What’s the tradeoff we have to face?

Eight Challenges for Developers Jonathan Grudin (1994) No summarization of the content itself (many people found this outdated) Average Rating: 3.3 / 5 (N = 11)

Organizations > Groups > Individuals Is the distinction still valid?

Do we really need groupware? Is the distinction outdated? The term groupware itself is somewhat outdated. It seems to be difficult to set distinct layer between end-user software, groupware, and organizational software. What changed the space?

Important technological changes since 1990’s. They seem to have significant effects in the field of groupware.

How did technological advancement influence the design of groupware? Easy, fast, and ubiquitous access seems to have solved some development challenges Scalability issues persist (critical mass, dealing with large amount of data)

Tech trends gave birth to new types of interactive applications: social software Mostly, these applications are carried on the web

Clive Thompson on Wired. Social sixth sense (2007) It’s as if individual’s senses are extended over the network. You feel like you are right next to your friends when you see their Twitter posts. Rich ‘Being there’ experience Clive Thompson on Wired. Social sixth sense (2007)

Can technology incorporate socially subtle issues in designing groupware? Should developers think about the social effects of their software from the design phase? How can we maximize the impact that a certain software creates? Can technology solve, or at least alleviate, societal problems such as lack of interaction, strict hierarchical structure of organizations, etc.?

Gary M. Olson & Judith S. Olson (2000) Distance Matters Gary M. Olson & Judith S. Olson (2000) Conclusion: Cannot overcome distance - very skeptical about collaborative work at a distance

Collaboration readiness Collaboration technology readiness Common ground Coupling of group work Collaboration readiness Collaboration technology readiness 4 factors that affect the success of collaborative work for remote groups

Common ground Group members should get to know each other better! (either online or offline) They need to share the common context, sharing more cues for better understanding. Face-to-face vs. email: supports the idea that e-mail is beyond being there (no overlap in characteristics)

Sociometer, MIT Media Lab Alex Pentland’s Human Dynamics Lab An example to help people establish common ground. An unconscious channel of communication between people is almost unexplored. These unconscious social signals do affect the way we interact with others. One of the ways we detect these signals is in a form of feedback. Location, voice, etc. data analyzed to assist conversations and negotiations Sociometer, MIT Media Lab

2. Coupling of work - a characteristic of the work itself "coupling“ refers to the extent and kind of communication required by the work Tightly coupled work is very difficult to do remotely. Mischief – how tight coupling of work is handled. Teacher and screen shared, meanwhile each child gets a mouse for themselves to answer questions or engage in collaborative tasts.

How can we motivate people to contribute more? 3. Collaboration readiness – people should be willing to collaborate! Motivation has been established as one of the major sources of failure in adoption of groupware in general. People don’t want to share their ideas and results with others, especially when there is not enough incentives. Build the culture of sharing and collaboration – incentive structure

4. Technology Readiness Advanced technologies should be introduced in small steps. Techniques to lower the psychological barrier of people about new technology Advertisement campaigns [watch the VIDEO] Korean 3G video phone advertisement hides technological jargons and focuses on everyday tasks and user experiences to help people familiarize with new technology

Distance matters vs. Beyond being there Distance matters: “Collaborative work at a distance will be difficult to do for a long time, if not forever.” Vs. Beyond being there: “Let’s reframe the question and approach the problem with a new insight.”

telegraphy, telephone, radio, television, fax machines, email… what made them successful?

What can we learn from the past success / failure? How was the new technology ‘accepted’ by people? Did all members of the group benefit from the technology? Which members welcomed or resisted applying the new technology?

Additional Slides

“When in Rome, do as Romans do.” But… where is Rome? In remote software, where is Rome? Is it me? My partner? Or a virtual space?

How can we cope with cultural differences? What makes good cross-cultural design? Very different traditions and atmosphere: how to deal with it? - dress - process: team organization and dynamics (value of task vs. personal relationship) - power distance - styles of management conversation structure Sensitivity to cultural differences will always take more effort, no matter how good the technology. Will simply understanding other cultures better help? Or more systematic approach is necessary?