Lightweight Collaboration
Lisa M. Smith
Michelle Chang
Pratik Dave
CPSC 672 Topic 4 Presentation
Lightweight Collaboration
 lightweight
– “without much user
involvement” [dourish and bly,
1992]
 lightweight communication
– impromptu
– quick/easy to initiate
– short/informal
– multiple/distinct occurrences
 lightweight interaction
– two-way (dyadic)
 example systems & issues
– dyadic
• Montage 1994, Sunsoft
• TeleNotes 1997, Lotus
Development Corporation
– distributed work groups
• Portholes 1992, Xerox
EuroPARC/PARC
– multiple users
• CWB 2002, Mitsubishi
Electric Research
Laboratories
Lightweight Collaboration:
systems and issues
 dyadic
– Montage [tang et al.]
• hallway metaphor
• lightweight audio/video
glances
• accessibility modes
– do not disturb, locked,
out of office, other
• 3-way support
• results
– similar to face-to-face or
phone
– provide awareness
– TeleNotes [whittaker et al.]
• presentation metaphor
• stack of stickies per topic
– Notes database
• lightweight features
– conversational
threading, one-way
drop, quick connection,
context preservation and
regeneration, shared
objects
• results
– quicker to start,
“quickfire” exchanges,
personal reminding and
notes for others
Lightweight Collaboration:
systems and issues (cont.)
 distributed work groups
– Portholes [dourish and bly]
• joint management of
distributed data space by
cooperating servers
• iterative
design/development/use
• broadcast mode
– all users have access to
all information
• results
– shared awareness
– “sense of community”
 multiple users
– CWB: Collaborative Web
Browsing [esenther]
• multiple users synchronize
views of web pages while
talking on phone
• “one-click collaboration”
– shared pointer
• results
– ‘casual collaboration’
between arbitrary users
– unobtrusive
– avoids pre-collaboration
and trust requirements
Awareness
 awareness
– gives daily view of work
environment
• who’s around?
• what activities are going
on?
• who’s talking to whom?
– helps maintain relationships
• informal interactions
• spontaneous connections
• development of shared
cultures
– co-located groups
– distributed groups at multiple
sites
 issues
– how awareness information
affects/supports collaborative
work?
– what awareness information is
meaningful and how to provide
it?
– how to effectively present
useful awareness information
in user interface design?
 further information/overview
– see [liechti, 2000]
Peripheral Awareness
 peripheral awareness
– systems providing awareness
information via software residing
in user’s peripheral attention
– how systems present information
without requiring focus of
attention
• calm technology (Weiser and
Brown)
– “move easily from the
periphery of our
attention, to the center,
and back”
– Natalie Jeremijenko’s
“Dangling String”
 example system
– Sideshow [cadiz et al, 2002] ,
Microsoft Research
• internet or intranet
information; screen real
estate; launch point for
accessible (further)
information
• tickets on side bar of primary
display
• results
– “stay aware of important
information without
switching away from
primary task”
Situational Awareness
 situational awareness
– also referred to as peripheral
awareness
– continually monitoring variety of
inputs (auditory, visual, tactile),
instantly shifting attention if
required
– safety or time critical systems
 example
– air traffic control ethnographic
studies: role of paper flight strips
• [mackay, 1999], University of
Aarhus
• this is a “honed skill”: passive
and active
– unobstrusively monitor
evolving situation
– process multiple threads
– extract information as
needed
• off-duty team members
“chatting”
• students must gradually learn
Situational Awareness:
research
 framework for cooperative problem
solving
– airline operations [mccoy et al.],
– situation
• real-time information
• background knowledge
– cooperation (knowledge needed
for decision-making)
• shared understanding of local
situations
• interpersonal bonds (trust)
– results:
• level of detail needed to
maintain situational
awareness varies on
circumstances
 safety or time critical systems,
further information
– military
• see [kruse, 2000], University of
Arizona
– emergency service work (CAD)
• see [pettersson et al., 2002],
Sweden, Manchester Metropolitan
University
Mobile Ad hoc Collaboration
Mobile Ad hoc Collaboration
 Spans geographic separation and time
 Challenges:
1. Poor Wireless bandwidth networks
2. Out of service area
3. Pre-defined group doesn’t exist
4. Creating an active seamless link
5. Other user already engaged or mobile
device switched off
Hocman
 Mattias Esbjornsson and Mattias Ostergren
Mobility, Interactive Institute, Stockholm Sweden
 Ad hoc collaboration among motorcyclists
 HTTP peer to peer application
 Share audio, images, HTML documents on a
handheld device
 Maintains profiles of motorcyclists in the
vicinity
RoamWare

Mikael Wiberg, Umea University, Sweden

Seamless interaction in between mobile meetings

3 components: Desktop, PDA, Radio
1. PDA : records
meeting interactions,
times, participants
2. Radio: finds names
& emails of all
participants in the
vicinity
3. Desktop: allows user
to sync and refine
notes on office PC.
Call-Kiosk
 Thomas Rst, Patrick Brandmeier, Gerd
Herzog, Elisabeth Andre, German Research
Center for AI, Germany
 Simulates the function of a tourist office
 Information delivered as WML pages
stored on server
 Client downloads pages to mobile device
WebSplitter
 Richard Han, Veronique Perret,




Mahmoud Naghshineh, IBM
Thomas J. Watson Research
Center, NY
Form of collaborative web
browsing
Different access privileges to
different parts of the same web
page
Creates partial views depending
on user login
Uses a server-side XML metadata
policy file
Instant Messaging and Chat
General Issues with
Instant Messaging
 Synchronous/Interactive
– immediate context
– less likelihood of misunderstandings
 Can be used asynchronously
– conversation at slower pace throughout
day
– flexible for globally/temporally
distributed groups
 Highly visible alerting mechanism
– higher probability of response
– reasonable deniability
– stays on screen, low cost for response
 Informal/Coordinate social activity
– contact with family/friends
– useful in scheduling alternate media
contact
 Awareness/Socially Translucent
Interfaces
–
–
–
e.g. door with sign versus glass window
easier to conform to social conventions
awareness of availability serves as a cue
for opportunistic interaction
 Lightweight
– ease of initial setup
– ease of ongoing interaction
– continual presence
– swift exchanges
– easy to locate colleagues/respond
 Large-scale Problems to Adoption:
– privacy issues
– critical mass required
Problems with IM/Chat
Communication
 Lack of Recognition
 Lack of Intention Indicators
 Typing Inefficiency
 Diminished effectiveness for slower
typists
 Lack of status information
 Lack of context
From: “Alternative Interfaces for Chat” Vronay,
Smith, and Drucker (UIST ’99)
Babble
 IBM (CHI ’99)
– Part of “Loops” project
(“keep me in the loop”)
– See level of participation
- social cues
– See history – cues from
content
– Social proxy – sense of
audience and activity
Flow Chat
 Microsoft Research (UIST ’99)
 Address lack of status and typing
issues
 User Interface issues (scrolling)
provided less than stellar feedback
Threaded Chat
 Microsoft Research
(CSCW ’00)
 Oriented toward
collaborative
decision making
 User’s pleased with
quality of decision,
but interface issues
(awareness of new
messages)
problematic
Reach Out
 IBM Haifa (CSCW ’02)
 Addresses issue of peer
support
 IT & Internet produce
cultural obstacles to
knowledge sharing
 Newsgroups and mailing
lists require active
participation versus push
technology
IM in the Workplace
 Adoption difficulties
– Email and telephone responded to existing needs
– Not a direct replacement for any existing tools
– Most widely-publicized use teenagers gossipping
• Seen as water-cooler talk
• Kraut / Informal communications benefits
– Studies show most messages pertinent to work
– Studies show usefulness in distributed workplaces/groups
 Responds to Rhythms of Work
– Individual patterns of business vary across the day, location, day of week,
etc.
– Promotes social understanding across geographically distributed groups
People
Bonnie Nardi (AT&T)
Nicole Yankelovich (SUN)
Steve Whittaker (AT&T)
John Tang (SUN)
Elizabeth Churchill
(FXPAL)
Wendy Kellogg (IBM)
Thomas Erickson (IBM)
James “Bo” Begole (SUN)
Sara Bly (Sara Bly Consulting)