Browsing by Author "Voida, Stephen"

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    Artifact Buddy: The Video
    (2010-11-01T17:16:25Z) Greenberg, Saul; Voida, Stephen; Stehr, Nathan
    In this video, we present a system called Artifact Buddy, which is grounded on the premise that an unaltered Instant Messenger system can simultaneously provide both artifact awareness and interpersonal awareness. In Artifact Buddy, artifacts and people are treated the same way. An artifact – in this case a Microsoft Word document - becomes a first-class IM buddy and behaves like other buddies within a defined group. The artifact-as-buddy knows which people are interested in it and notifies these individuals about its state. Group members can interact with the artifact (and the rest of the group) through the IM system’s standard chat features. Critically, this is all done with a client-side helper application that exploits an existing and unaltered IM system. The IM system does all the heavy lifting: it does the underlying distributed systems work, communication, account control, and so on. For a group that already uses this common IM program, all that is required is that one group member install a helper application to run in the background. Additionally, because our approach takes advantage of the interaction mechanisms already well established by IM, group members can readily join and participate in collaborations without requiring that they learn how to use a completely new application. We built Artifact Buddy as a working technical illustration of how artifact awareness can be feasibly integrated into an existing instant messenger. The Artifact Buddy system implements a user interface and a wrapper around Microsoft’s Live™ Messenger service. We chose Live Messenger because it has functions typical of most IM services, as well as a public API; we use the open-source DotMSN library to access Live Messenger functions. Through this API, Artifact Buddy programmatically invokes activities such as inviting buddies, setting and receiving state information, sending and receiving chat messages, initiating and responding to file exchanges, and so on. Importantly, Artifact Buddy is not a distributed system. Rather, it is a local application that relies completely on the underlying capabilities of the Live Messenger IM infrastructure to connect and to distribute chat data, status messages and files to others. This video illustrates the key features of Artifact buddy. A companion paper [1] details its background, further features, and intellectual contributions. References [1] Greenberg, S., Voida, S., Stehr, N. and Tee, K. (2010) Artifacts as Instant Messaging Buddies. 11th Persistent Conversation Minitrack, Digital Media and Content, Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – HICSS’10, (Kauai, Hawaii, January 5-8),IEEE.
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    Asymmetry in Media Spaces
    (2008) Greenberg, Saul; Voida, Amy; Voida, Stephen; He, Helen Ai
    In any collaborative system, there are symmetries and asymmetries present in both the design of the technology and in the ways that technology is appropriated. In typical CSCW research and development, however, there seems to be more focus on supporting and fostering the symmetries than the asymmetries. Throughout more than 20 years of media space research, for example, there has been a recurrent theme - researchers pursuing increased symmetry, whether achieved through technical or social means. The research literature on the use of contemporary awareness systems, in contrast, displays little if any of this emphasis on symmetrical use; indeed, this body of research occasionally highlights the perceived value of asymmetry. In this paper, we unpack the different forms of asymmetry present in both media spaces and contemporary awareness systems. We argue that just as asymmetry has been demonstrated to have value in contemporary awareness systems, so might asymmetry have value in CSCW research system development, as well. To illustrate, we present a media space that emphasizes and embodies multiple forms of asymmetry and does so in response to the unique needs of a particular work context.
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    WikiFolders: Augmenting the Display of Folders to Better Convey the Meaning of Files
    (2008-09-30T21:49:56Z) Voida, Stephen; Greenberg, Saul
    Hierarchical file systems and file browsers offer powerful capabilities for managing and organizing folders and files. Yet they lack robust tools for annotating and documenting these files—individually or collectively—with descriptive text. In contrast, Web pages and wikis make it easy to embed digital artifacts in explanatory images and prose, thus enabling rich and meaningful narratives. Unfortunately, they require considerable effort to manage individual files and ensure that the published content remains up-to-date. In this note, we describe WikiFolders, a hybrid system for annotating file folders that draws upon the strengths of both the hierarchical file system and wikis while mitigating their weaknesses.