Workspace Awareness Elements

The results of this research confirmed the importance of the overall three workspace awareness categories proposed by Gutwin and Greenberg’s workspace awareness framework (2002), also shown in Table 6-1. However, explicitly supporting all elements in a co-located workspace would create too much clutter and distract users. As Gutwin and Greenberg also noted, co-located groups will already know some of the awareness information; thus, fewer elements need to be provided by the system in

co-located environments. Based on the two studies presented in this dissertation, Table 6-3 and Table 6-4 present the recommended elements to provide in tabletop systems and multi-device environments. In both tables, the awareness elements are based on the workspace awareness framework by Gutwin and Greenberg (2002), adapted to expand two elements to provide more specificity. The intention element under the what category is broken down into interaction and command. Interaction

represents actions that do not have permanent impact to the system state in the shared workspace such as exploration of information. Command represents actions that permanently modify the system state such as issuing commands through the interface and editing contents in the workspace. The location element under the where category is broken down into three categories, physical input, virtual input, and virtual impact, as discussed in the previous section. Table 6-3 shows direct interaction and propagation of action for the tabletop environment, and it provides a ranking of whether a piece of awareness information is easy to observe without additional system support and whether supporting this awareness information is recommended.

For direct interaction in a digital tabletop environment, most of the user actions happen in the shared workspace and are plainly observable by collaborators. Thus, very minimal support for the current actions is needed. However, given the potential distractions in the environment for complex domains, historical supports of commands that modify the system states can become useful for collaborators to catch up and for debriefing purposes.

For propagation of action, the presence and identity information are observable as well as collaborators’ location, gaze, view, and reach since the collaborators are co-located in the same physical space. However, the rest of the information can be difficult to gather in great detail. Since actions that triggered further events in the shared workspace are typically done in users’ personal space, observing the exact actions being carried out by the collaborators are hard such as knowing exactly which buttons were pressed. Consequently, knowing exactly who just made a specific change (authorship) for what reason (intention) can be difficult.

Furthermore, knowing where the impact of collaborators’ actions can also be difficult since collaborators do not typically monitor others’ actions in the personal spaces (Scott & Carpendale, 2010). For systems that involve propagation of action, designers need to carefully consider how to connect users’ physical location and the consequent events invoked in other locations (i.e., connect physical input and virtual impact locations). Considering the previous design recommendation on

Category Element Tabletop – direct interaction Tabletop – propagation of action Ease to observe Recommend to support Ease to observe Recommend to support Who

Presence easy no easy no

Identity easy no easy no

Authorship easy no hard yes

What

Action easy no medium

- hard yes Intention

Interaction easy no medium

- hard yes Command easy yes for historical

events

medium - hard yes

Artifact easy no medium no

Where Location Physical input easy no easy -

medium _{yes, connect} the two Virtual

input no

Virtual

impact no hard

Gaze easy no easy no

View easy no easy no

Reach easy no easy no

Table 6-3: Recommended workspace awareness elements to provide for tabletop systems. For direct interaction, users can observe the collaborators’ actions so minimal awareness support is needed. For propagation of action, the system needs to provide more awareness information since users do not tend to observe actions that take place in personal

supporting progression of awareness levels, designers need to consider users’ comprehension of multiple cues to connect the information. In addition to the location information, designers should also support users’ awareness of who did what, while clearly distinguish the different collaborators and actions.

Designers should also consider that there is a varying degree of granularity in collaborator’s awareness of each other. Although they may not be able to observe the exact details of collaborators’ actions, they can usually gain a rough sense of what others are working on (actions) with which tools (artifacts) at which area of the workspace (location). While these elements are recommended to support, designers should be aware of the level of support needed given the particular task domain. Collaborators may not always need to know the exact details.

Table 6-4 illustrates the ease of observation for workspace awareness elements and whether an element should be explicitly provided in multi-device environments. Here, only the propagation of action interaction type is considered as it is assumed that users are distributed across devices in this co-located setting. Thus, not all information can be easily observed. Collaborators may also sit in various arrangements, rather than sitting around a table. They may be sitting shoulder-to-shoulder next to each other or one behind another. Thus, presence and identity information are harder to observe in this context. The collaborators’ actions and intentions as well as the artifacts they are using also become difficult to observe due to the small screen size and physical separation. Consequently, authorship is difficult to observe as well. While users’ physical sitting location can be observed, their virtual location cannot be observed without system support. In the case of the shared online canvas for multi-device classrooms, students cannot easily know where the collaborators are in the virtual canvas without verbally communicate this information. The ability to observe the virtual impacts made by other collaborators is largely constrained by a user’s viewport and whether they happen to spot the changes in time. In terms of users’ gaze, view, and reach, since they can be in both physical and virtual world, they are broken down to physical and virtual in Table 6-4. Although a user’s physical gaze and view can be difficult to observe due to the seating arrangement, their physical reach can be inferred based on where they are in the physical space. However, the virtual gaze, view, and reach cannot typically be observed given the small screen size.

Although many awareness cues are difficult to observe, supporting all of them would create too much clutter. Furthermore, not all of them present enough value to outweigh the additional distractions. The Callout Bubble Study showed that who made what modifications (authorship, action, and command) on which objects (artifact) at which locations in the shared workspace (virtual input and impact) is important to support. In the case of a shared canvas, the virtual input and impact locations are the same in the virtual canvas although they are presented on different physical devices. Several information elements are ranked as nice to have for they are not as urgent and do not require the same level of saliency in the interface. Knowing what other collaborators can view and reach in their virtual space as well as their interactions can help users to further predict peers’ actions and coordinate actions. However, designers need to be cautious of potential distractions created by these

Category Element

Multi-device environment –

Propagation of action

Ease to observe Recommend to support

Who

Presence medium no

Identity medium no

Authorship hard yes

What

Action hard yes

Intention Interaction hard nice to have

Command hard yes

Artifact hard yes

Where

Location

Physical Input medium no

Virtual Input hard yes

Virtual Impact depending on the size of

the viewport yes

Gaze Physical medium no

Virtual hard no

View Physical medium no

Virtual hard nice to have

Reach Physical medium (inferred) no

Virtual hard nice to have

Table 6-4: Recommended workspace awareness elements to support for multi-device environments. Since users are distributed across devices in a room, most of the awareness information is hard to observe. Several key awareness elements are recommended, and some are ranked as nice to have to avoid clutter.

awareness cues. These elements were explored in the early design phases in the second study, but were dropped due to the potential distractions and technical difficulties (e.g., no mouse cursors on tablets and difficulties in detecting out-of-app interactions).