How People Partition Workspaces in Single Display Groupware
Date
2003-10-27
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Abstract
Single Display Groupware (SDG) lets multiple people, each with their
own input device, interact simultaneously on a single display. With two or
more people potentially working in the same or nearby areas of the display,
the actions of one could interfere with others, e.g., by raising menus and
bringing tool palettes into areas where others are working. Interaction
techniques could be used to mitigate the interference; however, other
approaches might be more suitable if collaborators were to naturally
partition their workspace into distinct areas when working on a particular
task. To determine the realistic potential for interference, we investigated
people performing a set of collaborative drawing exercises in a co-located
setting, paying particular attention to the locations of their interactions
in the shared workspace. We saw that spatial division occurred consistently
and naturally accross all participants, rarely requiring any verbal
negotiation. Particular divisions of the space varied, influenced by seating
position and image semantics. These results have several implications for the
design of SDG workspaces, including the consideration of peoples' seating
positions at the display, the use of moveable Local Tools and in-context
menus, and the use of dynamic transparency to mitigate interference.
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Computer Science