1. Designing for collaboration and communication
Chapter 4
Designing for collaboration and communication

2. Outline Social mechanisms in communication and collaboration
Technology-mediated social phenomena

3. Social mechanisms Conversational mechanisms Coordination mechanisms
Awareness mechanisms

4. Conversational mechanisms
Various mechanisms and ‘rules’ are followed when holding a conversation
Mutual greetings
Turn-taking
People use various ways to signal whether they want to hand over or take up a turn in the conversation

5. More conversational rules
Back channeling, e.g. Uh-uh, umm, ahh
Farewell rituals, e.g. Bye then, see you, see you later….
Implicit and explicit cues
e.g., looking at watch, fidgeting with coat and bags
explicitly saying “Oh dear, must go, look at the time, I’m late…”

6. Breakdowns in conversation
Caused by a misunderstanding between a speaker and a listener
Overcome the misunderstanding by using repair mechanisms
When the listener misunderstands what has been communicated, the speaker repeats what she said earlier, using a stronger voice intonation and more exaggerated gestures

7. Kinds of conversations
Formal
Informal

8. Kinds of conversations
Formal communication involves assigning certain roles to people and prescribing a priori the types of turns that people are allowed to take in a conversation, e.g. at a board meeting

9. Kinds of conversations
Informal communication is the chat that goes on when people socialize. It also happens when people bumps into each other and talk briefly.
In office settings, such chance conversations have been found to serve a number of functions, including, coordinating group work, transmitting knowledge about office culture, establishing trust, and general team-building (Kraut et al., 1990).

10. Design challenges
For people who are located in different locations, a key design issue has been to determine how to allow people to carry on communicating as if they were in the same place
For co-located groups of people, a design challenge has been to design collaborative technologies to help them communicate and work together more effectively, especially when creating and sharing content

11. Communicating in physically different locations
, videoconferencing, videophones, computer conferencing, chatrooms, and instant messaging

12. VideoWindow system (Bellcore, 1989)
Shared space that allowed people 50 miles apart to carry on a conversation as if in same room drinking coffee together
3 x 8 ft ‘picture-window’ between two sites with video and audio
People did interact via the window but strange things happened (Kraut, 1990)
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13. Sketch of VideoWindow
From:

14. Findings of how VideoWindow System was used
Talked constantly about the system
Spoke more to other people in the same room rather than in other room
When tried to get closer to someone in other place had opposite effect - went out of range of camera and microphone
No way of monitoring whether they were being seen and heard by the others in the other room
Private conversations could not be supported
From:

15. Communicating in co-located settings
Smartboards, tabletops, various forms of public displays
One approach has been to situate interactive shared displays in public spaces, e.g. hallways, reception areas, that are intended to encourage people to meet and socialize through posting messages or adding opinions.

16. Computer-mediated communication
Kinds of computer-mediated communication
Synchronous communication
Asynchronous communication

17. Synchronous computer-mediated communication
Conversations are supported in real-time through voice and/or typing
Examples include video conferencing, VOIP, MUDs and chat
From:

18. Synchronous computer-mediated communication
Benefits include:
Not having to physically face people may increase shy people’s confidence
Allows people to keep abreast of the goings-on in an organization without having to move from their office
In offices, IM allows users to fire off quick questions and answers without the time lag of or phone-tag
Problems:
Difficult to establish eye contact with images of others
People can behave badly when behind the mask of an avatar
From:

19. Asynchronous computer-mediated communication
Communication takes place remotely at different times
It relies not on time-dependent turn-taking but on participants initiating communication and responding to others when they want or are able to do so
Examples include , newsgroups, texting
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20. Asynchronous computer-mediated communication
Benefits include:
Read any place any time
Flexible as to how to deal with it
Can make saying things easier
Problems include:
FLAMING!!!
Message overload
False expectations as to when people will reply
From:

21. Coordination mechanisms
Takes place when a group of people act or interact together to achieve something
Coordination mechanisms include:
Verbal and non-verbal communication
Schedules, rules, and conventions
Shared external representations

22. Verbal and non-verbal communication
Verbal (spoken or relating to words)
Talk
Meeting memos, agendas, minutes
Non-verbal
nods, shakes, winks, glances, gestures, and hand-raising
Examples: arm and baton movements of an orchestra conductor, arm and baton movements of a ground marshal at an airport

23. Schedules, rules, and conventions
Schedules used to organize regular activities in large organizations
Formal rules, like the writing of monthly reports enable organizations to maintain order and keep track
Conventions, like keeping quiet in a library, are a form of courtesy to others
From:

24. Shared external representations
Examples include calendars, forms, checklists
Presented on public noticeboards or other shared spaces, or attached to documents and folders

25. Shared external representations
Provide information on
who is working on what,
when it is being worked on,
where it is being worked on,
when a piece of work is supposed to be finished,
whom it goes to next

26. Shared external representations
Can be readily updated by annotating
Allow people to make various inferences about the changes or delays with respect to their effect on their current activities
They are tangible, providing important representations of work and responsibility that can be changed and updated as and when needed

27. Collaborative technologies to support coordination
There are a variety of software tools designed to support scheduling, planning and coordinating
e.g., group calendars, electronic schedulers, project management tools, and workflow tools
Need to get balance between human and system control
too much system control and the users will rebel
too little control and the system breaks down
From:

28. A shared external coordination representation
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29. Awareness mechanisms Awareness involves knowing who is around,
what is happening,
who is talking with whom

30. Awareness mechanisms
A specific kind of awareness is peripheral awareness, referring to a person’s ability to maintain and constantly update a sense of what is going on in the physical and social context, through
keeping an eye on what is happening in the periphery of their vision
overhearing and overseeing - allows tracking of what others are doing without explicit cues

31. Lo tech awareness mechanism
From:

32. Collaborative technologies to support awareness
Provide awareness information for people who need to work together but who are not in the same physical space
Awareness information:
what people are doing
the progress of ongoing work

33. Collaborative technologies to support awareness
Monitoring mechanisms
Example:
Potholes, developed at Xerox PARC research labs
awareness information is available through monitoring other people and being monitored by others

34. Collaborative technologies to support awareness
Notification mechanisms
Examples: Tickertape, Babble
awareness information is provided by explicitly letting others know about things, information about the status of shared objects and the progress of collaborative tasks
people can attend to the information when they want and provide information for whom they want

35. Key points
Social mechanisms, like turn-taking, conventions, etc., enable us to collaborate and coordinate our activities
Keeping aware of what others are doing and letting others know what you are doing are important aspects of collaborative working and socialising
Many collaborative technologies systems have been built to support collaboration
From:

36. Chapter 5
Affective aspects

37. Outline What are affective aspects?
Expressive interfaces and positive emotions
Frustrating interfaces and negative emotions
Persuasive technologies
Anthropomorphism in interaction design
Models of affective aspects

38. Affective aspects Emotions Facial expressions
Angry, happy, sad, bored
Facial expressions
We consider how interactive systems can be designed to provoke an emotion within the user

39. Expressive interfaces and positive emotions
Expressive forms like emoticons, sounds, icons, and virtual agents are used
to convey emotional states
to elicit certain kinds of emotional responses in users, such as feeling at ease, comfort, happiness
to inform the status of a system, for example,
A bee flying across the screen indicates that the computer is doing something such as checking files

40. Expressive interfaces and positive emotions
Benefit:
provide reassuring feedback that can be both informative and fun
Drawback:
Some people may find these expressive forms intrusive, leading them to negative feelings such as annoying or even angry

41. User-created expressiveness
The use of emoticons
Happy :-)
Sad :-(
Playful :-P
Very angry >:-(

42. A balance between designing pleasurable and usable interfaces
Traditionally, HCI focuses on designing a usable interface without paying much attention to the affective aspects of the interface
A study by Tractinsky (1997, 2000) showed that when the ‘look and feel’ of an interface is pleasing, users are likely to be more tolerant, e.g. slow download rate

43. Friendly interfaces
Bob, agent-based software pioneered by Microsoft in hopes to support new computer users
Clippy

44. User frustration Many reasons for negative emotions (frustration):
When an application doesn’t work properly or crashes
When a system doesn’t do what the user wants it to do
When a user’s expectations are not met
When a system does not provide sufficient information to let the user know what to do

45. User frustration When error messages pop up that are vague or obtuse
When the appearance of an interface is too noisy, garish, gimmicky, or patronizing
When a system requires users to carry out too many steps to perform a task, only to discover a mistake was made earlier and they need to start all over again

46. Gimmicks Amusing to the designer but not the user, e.g.,
Clicking on a link to a website only to discover that it is still ‘under construction’
From:

47. Error messages Why not instead:
“The application Word Wonder has unexpectedly quit due to a type 2 error.”
Why not instead:
“the application has expectedly quit due to poor coding in the operating system”
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48. Error messages Shneiderman’s guidelines for error messages include:
Being courteous, indicating what users need to do to set things right
Avoid terms like FATAL, INVALID, BAD
Audio warnings should be under user’s control
Avoid UPPERCASE and long code numbers

49. Error messages Shneiderman’s guidelines for error messages include:
Be precise rather than vague
Provide context-sensitive help
Should be provided at multiple levels, so that short messages can be supplemented with longer explanations

50. More helpful error messages
“The requested page /helpme is not available on the web server.
If you followed a link or bookmark to get to this page, please let us know, so that we can fix the problem. Please include the URL of the referring page as well as the URL of the missing page.
Otherwise check that you have typed the address of the web page correctly.
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51. Waiting
Websites that take forever to download can be frustrating

52. Upgrading software It is time-consuming Resetting preferences
Checking other configurations
Learning new ways of doing things

53. Appearance
Websites that are overloaded with text and graphics, making it difficult to find the desired information and slow to access
Flashing animations are very distracting, e.g. flashing banner ads and pop-up ads

54. Appearance Overuse of sound effects and music
Excessive number of operations
Childish designs that keep popping up on the screen

55. Dealing with user frustration
Help information should be designed to guide users on what to do next
Signaling at the interface indicating that the help information is available
A cartoon-based agent
A help icon or command activated by users is more preferable

56. Persuasive technologies
Interactive systems are deliberately designed to change people’s attitudes and behaviors
e.g. personalized messages, recommender systems

57. Nintendo’s Pocket Pikachu
Changing bad habits and improving well being
Designed to motivate children into being more physically active on a consistent basis
The owner of the digital pet that ‘lives’ in the device is required to walk, run, or jump
If owner does not exercise the virtual pet becomes unhappy and eventually dies
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58. Phishing and trust
Web used to deceive people into parting with personal details
e.g. paypal, ebay and won the lottery letters
Allows Internet fraudsters to access their bank accounts and draw money from them
Many vulnerable people fall for it
The art of deception is centuries old but internet allows ever more ingenious ways to trick people
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59. Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the propensity people have to attribute human qualities to objects
People have a propensity to accept and enjoy objects that have been given human-like qualities

60. Anthropomorphism Well known phenomenon in advertising
Dancing butter, drinks, breakfast cereals
Much exploited in human-computer interaction
Make user experience more enjoyable, more motivating, make people feel at ease, reduce anxiety
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61. Which do you prefer? 1. As a welcome message
“Hello Chris! Nice to see you again. Welcome back. Now what were we doing last time? Oh yes, exercise 5. Let’s start again.”
“User 24, commence exercise 5.”
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62. Which do you prefer? 2. Feedback when get something wrong
“Now Chris, that’s not right. You can do better than that. Try again.”
“Incorrect. Try again.”
Is there a difference as to what you prefer depending on type of message? Why?
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63. Criticisms of anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphic interfaces are deceptive
They can make people feel anxious, resulting in them feeling inferior or stupid
They can lead people into a false sense of belief, enticing them to confide in agents

64. Criticisms of anthropomorphism
Children are no longer required to use imagination
Very annoying
After realizing that the agent doesn’t possess real human qualities, users become quickly disillusioned and distrust it

65. Research studies – positive
Reeves and Nass (1996) found that computers that were designed to flatter and praise students had a positive impact on how they felt about themselves and were more willing to continue with exercises
Walker et al. (1994) and Sproull et al. (1996) found that users were more pleased with and interacting with the talking-face display more

66. Research studies - negative
Sproull et al. (1996) also found that the talking-face display made some users feel disconcerted or displeased

67. Research studies - negative
Quintanar et al. (1982) found that students rated the personable message (“Hi there, John! It’s nice to meet you, I see you are ready now”) as less honest than the mechanistic one (“Press the ENTER key to begin session”) and made them feel less responsible for their actions

68. What makes an agent believable?
Believability refers to the extent to which users come to believe an agent’s intentions and personality
Appearance is very important
Are simple cartoon-like characters or more realistic characters, resembling the human form more believable?
Behaviour is very important
How an agent moves, gestures and refers to objects on the screen
Exaggeration of facial expressions and gestures to show underlying emotions (c.f. animation industry)
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69. Models of affective aspects
Emotional design model
Pleasure model
Technology as experience framework

70. Emotional design model
Don Norman, Andrew Ortony, and William Revelle (2004) proposed a model of emotion that explains how emotion and behavior are determined by different levels of the brain

71. Emotional design model
Visceral level – the lowest level, parts of the brain that are pre-wired to automatically respond to events happening in the physical world
Behavioral level – the next level, the brain processes that control our everyday behavior
Reflective level – the highest level, the brain processes that contemplate

72. Visceral level
Responds rapidly to surroundings and makes judgments of things around us
Triggers the emotional responses to stimuli, e.g. fear, joy, anger, and sadness
These emotions are expressed through a combination of physiological and behavioral responses

73. Behavioral level The site where most human activities occur
Examples include well-learned routine operations such as talking, typing, and driving

74. Reflective level
Entails conscious thought where we generalize across events or step back from the routine and immediate
An example is switching between thinking about the narrative structure and special effects used in a Harry Potter movie and becoming scared at the visceral level when watching the movie

75. Claims from model Our emotional state changes how we think
when frightened or angry we focus narrowly and body responds by tensing muscles and sweating
more likely to be less tolerant
when happy we are less focused and the body relaxes
more likely to overlook minor problems and be more creative
From:

76. Implications
At visceral level, make products look, feel, and sound good
At behavioral level, make products usable
At reflective level, take into account the meaning and personal value of a product in a particular culture

77. Pleasure model
Based on Tiger’s (1992) framework of pleasure, Patrick Jordan (2000) proposed an affective model focuses on the pleasurable aspects of our interactions with products

78. Pleasure model Proposes 4 conceptually distinct types of pleasure
Physio-pleasure
Socio-pleasure
Psycho-pleasure
Ideo-pleasure (cognitive)

79. Physio-pleasure
Refers to bodily pleasures connected to sensory experiences
Example is the tactile pleasure of holding a sleek cell phone while making a call

80. Socio-pleasure
Refers to the enjoyment of being in the company of others
Example is showing photos to loved ones

81. Psycho-pleasure
Refers to people’s emotional and cognitive reactions to a product
Similar to the behavioral level of Norman’s model
Example is the emotionally satisfying experience of shopping on the web using an online site that is both pleasing and easy to use

82. Ideo-pleasure
Refers to people’s values and is similar to the reflective level of Norman’s model
Entails the aesthetics of a product and the cultural and personal values a person attributes to the product

83. Ideo-pleasure
Example: a person who buys a hybrid car may derive more ideo-pleasure using it because it is saving energy and is cheaper to run

84. Implications
A means of framing a designer’s thinking about pleasure, highlighting that there are different kinds
Does not prescribe that a product be designed to cover the complete set of pleasures
But certain ones may be more important to consider for a product

85. Technology as experience framework
McCarthy and Wright (2004) explained the user experience in terms of how it is ‘felt’ by the user

86. Technology as experience framework
Proposed 4 core threads that make up our holistic experiences:
Sensual thread
Emotional thread
Compositional thread
Spatio-temporal thread

87. Sensual thread Concerned with our sensory engagement with a situation
Similar to the visceral level of Norman’s model
Equal to the level of absorption people have with various technological devices and applications
Examples: thrill, fear, pain, and comfort

88. Emotional thread
Emotions are intertwined with the situation in which they arise, e.g. a person becomes angry with a computer because it does not work properly
Emotions also involve making judgments of values
Common examples are sorrow, anger, joy, and happiness

89. Compositional thread
Concerned with the narrative part of the experience and the way a person makes sense of them
The compositional thread is the internal thinking we do during our experiences

90. Spatio-temporal thread
Refers to the space and time in which our experiences take place and their effect upon those experiences
Time: speeding up, standing still, slowing down
Space: public and personal places

91. Implications
The threads are meant as ideas to help designers think and talk more clearly and concretely about the relationship between technology and experience
Can aid thinking about the whole experience of a technology rather than as fragmented aspects, e.g., its usability, its marketability, or utility

92. Key points
Affective aspects are concerned with how interactive systems make people respond in emotional ways
Well-designed interfaces can elicit good feelings in users
Expressive interfaces can provide reassuring feedback

93. Key points Badly designed interfaces make people angry and frustrated
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human qualities to objects

94. Key points
An increasingly popular form of anthropomorphism is to create agents and other virtual characters as part of an interface
Models of affect provide a way of conceptualizing emotional and pleasurable aspects of interaction design