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Same time same place - Meeting rooms and shared surfaces

Traditional tools consist of WYSIWIS (What you se is what I see). Everyone should be exactly on the same page

Tools​

  • Colab - Xerox PAC - 2-6 pcs linked to support f2f meetings
  • Boardnoter - General drawing
  • Cognoter - Supports meetings to organise a presentation, brainstorming, organise ideas etc
  • The i-Land - Vision for collaborative offices, using everything
  • HuddleLamp - Desk lamp with an integrated RGB-D camera. Tracks the movements and positions of mobile displays and hands
  • Air Constellations - Magical move device near and watch it react

Relaxing WYSIWIS​

Where strict showed everyone the same thing, colab taught us that its best to relax some dimensions in order to make collaboration more effective

  • Display Space - WYSIWIS for a subset of visual objects
  • Time of display - provide control over when it updates
  • Subgroups - allow interaction in dynamic subgroups
  • Congruence - Allow information to be seen differently in different situations

Cross device interactions​

  • Modularity and rapid re-configurability of device
  • Need to sense where devices are in space
    • e.g. for easily redirecting input to devices, directional gestures, transferring content
    • computer vision techniques, short-range infrared sensing, radio-based sensing such as Bluetooth or near-field communication

Shared Interactive Surfaces - Several people use the same surfaces

Microsoft PixelSense - Rear projection replaced by augmented LCD technology. Optical sensing system, fully integrated into a thin form factor display

Tangible User Interface - Originally Graspable User Interfaces

  • Originally developed from the idea of direct manipulation
    • Direct movement of objects in user interfaces
  • TUIs - Moving an actual object to more virtual objects

Common Areas of Conflict​

  • Moving/Re-orienting things that other people are looking at
  • Editing things people are working on
  • Stealing objects from one persons collection
  • Closing/removing objects that other people are using

Conclusions​

  • There are many ways to make f2f meetings more flexible
    • Tools focus on portability of information
    • Tools focus on privacy, sharing, and control
    • Relaxed WYSIWIS
  • Tabletops can provide multi-person collaboration
    • People prefer small private territories/controls & shared spaces
    • Software can help collaboration by invoking shared policies