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Greenberg, S. (1999)
The Ebb and Flow of Collaboration in Groupware – Invited Plenary. In Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Human Computer Interaction – OZCHI’99. (Wagga Wagga, Australia), November 28-30.
Type: Invited publication and plenary talk.
Additional materials: powerpoint presentation.

Download as: Pdf

Abstract.
Much of the excitement and early success of groupware for remote collaboration stems from people being able to connect to others in real-time for the purpose of on-line communication and/or information exchange. People with a great need to collaborate could now do so electronically, and those curious about the technology acquired an intriguing set of systems to experiment with. Unfortunately, most groupware systems are awkward to use, for they do not support the graceful and often subtle ebb and flow of interaction that underlies rich collaboration. As the novelty of groupware wears off, people will become increasingly disgruntled by its rough edges.

In this presentation, I will reflect on my group’s decade of experience researching the human factors behind collaboration and how they can be applied to groupware design. In particular, I will describe how we can do a better job in three areas critical to how groupware can support the natural ebb and flow of collaboration. First, people should be aware of what others are doing as they work together over shared artifacts, for this will allow them to move easily between their individual and shared activities. Second, people must be aware of the availability of their colleagues and easily use that awareness to move into interaction. Third, people must be able to view their collaboration seamlessly, where the software does not hinder how they move naturally from personal to group work, from asynchronous to synchronous interaction, between individual and group activity and so on. I will also present a variety of systems—developed by myself and my colleagues—that attempt to support these groupware design aspects.