AwarenessOctober 23, 2008

Dourish and BellottiDing and Patterson

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

What is awareness?• Collocated interactions occur with a high

degree of awareness of each other

• Media spaces were designed to provide a high degree of such type of ‘awareness’

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

What are awareness and context in CSCW?

• An understanding of the activities of others which provides a context for your own activity (Dourish and Bellotti)

• Awareness aids in coordination of the group activity

• Important whether distributed or collocated

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Providing Context• Context is comprised of both content and

character

• Awareness information can be either:– explicitly generated– passively collected and presented

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Synchronous and asynchronous awareness

• What is awareness in synchronous systems?e.g. Group editors

• Awareness in asynchronous systemse.g. Shared workspaces, like SharePoint

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Awareness mechanisms• Informational

– System explicitly has channels where people can inform each other about their activities

• Role-based (or role restrictive)– An individual is assigned a role in the task (e.g.

editor, author)– The actions that a user can take in the system is

then restricted to what their role is

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Study of ShrEdit use• Groups of 3, remote, using video/and or

audio• Task: design an automatic post office• Used ShrEdit, a shared collaborative editor• Groups could freely open any number of

shared windows

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

ShrEdit design• Each user can have public or private windows• Can edit text concurrently, each user has own cursor• Private documents-only the user can see and edit text• User can select text and “lock it” from other users• Names of group members displayed• No model of the collaboration process• Coordination done with verbal communication

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Shared feedback• ShrEdit provides shared feedback: presenting

feedback about group members’ activities within the shared workspace

• Overcomes problems of other approaches:– Low overhead for provider and receiver of

information– No role restrictions– Information can be provided when needed,

according to context

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

What does awareness information do for

collaboration?• Awareness of process (character): Participants

can structure their activities; avoid redundant work

• Awareness of content: can change/adapt content accordingly

• Awareness can aid group members in adapting to new roles as the situation arises– Different working styles, self-organization

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Shared feedback• Shared feedback reduces burden on individuals--

information is automatically shared

• Users can “pick and choose” that information that is most relevant for them (e.g. which edits they need to see)

• Awareness information is conveyed through the shared workspace, i.e. relevant information is linked to the shared object

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Other types of awareness• History of use (e.g. with a document)

• Notifications, e.g. who has checked out a document from the shared workspace

• (From sensors): presence/absence of a person

• Current activity of a person

• Ambient sound

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

How much information is the right amount?

• Media spaces

• Information overload?

• How can users filter out the right information?

• What about privacy?

How to add awareness in today’s workplace?

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Nomatic*Viz• Anonymous• Physically situated• Individual ambiguity• Display ambiguity• Public• Persistent

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Things people do with status• Meeting events• Work activities• Expressions of mood• Non-work activities• Miscellaneous

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

What did people do? How did people react?

• Glance• Play• Changing

thoughts about community

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Ambiguity in DesignAllows people to play with their boundaries

around:• privacy• control of data• identification• presentation

Informatics 153 – Fall 2008 – Gillian Hayes

Upcoming• Tuesday – Why CSCW Applications Fail…

and Why they succeed

• You should have your idea for what you are going to build for your project

• Next Thursday – Online communities