Active Coordination to Resolve Conflicts

Prior researchers developed coordination policies and techniques beyond ‘social protocols’ for multi-user interface to resolve conflicts, protect objects and territories, thus enforce equal participation [48, 49]. These policies and techniques were desir- able in their study cases since their study participants were classmates or colleagues. However, our participants were very different. Resolving conflicts through communi- cation is an essential part of romantic relationships and other sustained meaningful

relationships.

Our system relied on participants themselves to coordinate to solve these con- flicts. By not strongly enforcing coordination policies, our embodied cross-surface curation system minimally interfered with how participants preferred to deal with conflicts. Intentional and accidental conflicts sometimes brought unexpected benefit to the collaboration. Letting participants to resolve conflicts through communica- tion was vital to their engagement in their collaborative design. The limited space of the collaborative surface did not always fit all the items collected throughout a design session. Participants reflected, and transformed their composition from time to time. When both participants were simultaneously working on a composition, the multi-touch modality provided them with the opportunity to effectively work in collaboration.

4.3.4.1 Many Ways to Coordinate

We observed coordination behaviors that included both formal ones that showed respect to partners, and informal ones that showed the intimacy between a couple. When both participants wanted to manipulate a rich bookmark, in the formal or polite coordination, a participant waited for his partner to finish her change, and then worked on the same rich bookmark. He usually explained the reason that he made the further change. However, he might not explain if the reason was obvious (i.e. making a rich bookmark tilt upright).

As the example of the informal coordination, a female participant had dominant control of the composition while standing. When her partner intended to make changes to the composition, she knocked his hands off from the collaborative surface to regain control.

the layout of the composition. They could both contributed to the same area of the composition or they could do differently. We often saw that one participant contributed more to the big picture and the overall layout of a composition while the other focused on the details. Multi-touch capability enabled and ensured that both participants had concurrent access to manipulate rich bookmarks on the collaborative surface. They could interact with the composition simultaneously (as shown in Figure 4.12) or took turns to change rich bookmarks to express their ideas.

Figure 4.12: Two participants simultaneously interacting with different objects on the composition.

4.3.4.2 Spontaneous Collaboration without Coordination

Conflicts did not always cause negative effects to productivity. Spontaneous collaboration often occurred. Two participants could successfully collaborate on

manipulating one rich bookmark simultaneously without intentional coordination. In this example shown in Figure 4.13, the male participant shared a rich bookmark to the composition, and attracted his partner’s attention. He moved the rich bookmark to the center of the composition, and asked how to make it bigger. Meanwhile, she leaned towards the collaborative surface to touch the same rich bookmark. Usually, simultaneous touching by two participants would cause conflicts. However, in this particular case, the two participants moved their fingers in two opposite directions, which unexpectedly led to the desired results. Both participants were satisfied. He said, “That’s exactly what I want.” It ended up with both participants smiling. This kind of spontaneous collaboration resulted in intimate moments, which resulted in an overall satisfying experience for participants.

Some forms of coordination were non-verbal. When participants wanted to con- duct interaction on the composition for an extensive period, or use both hands, they would put aside their mobile devices. We observed in one session that one partici- pant looked at the composition. His body turned towards his partner and extended his hand that held the mobile devices. She immediately got his intention and held the mobile device for him while he was working on the composition.

One interesting moment occurred during a session, when a participant looked over her partner’s shoulder to watch his mobile device. She liked the rich bookmark that the husband had just collected. Before she made the sharing gesture (Section 2.3.2) The design of the sharing gesture takes into account the spatial relationship between the mobile device and the collaborative surface, making it easy for participants to perform the gesture, each on the other person’s device!

Figure 4.13: An example showing participants interacting with the same rich book- marks without explicit coordination.

4.3.4.3 Asking for / Giving Help

Active coordination during the collaboration improved the efficiency. Sometimes, after interacting with a rich bookmark, a participant would ask her partner for help to make further improvements. Some examples would be: ‘move it to the back’, ‘rotate the mirror to align with the closet’, etc. Participants also asked their partners for help. For example, a participant would ask his partner to move or change a rich bookmark that she could not reach.

While working on similar tasks, a rich bookmark collected by one participant often subsequently inspired his/her partner. A participant could help his partner find a particular object on the web. Since both participants had their own mobile device to collect information, each of them could also pursuit his/her own specific information need, in the context of working toward a common goal. For example, when designing a garage / storage space, the husband took the lead in looking for exercise and fitness devices, the wife was looking for storage frames (Figure 4.14).