HEURISTICS FOR AWARENESS SUPPORT IN GROUPWARE SYSTEMS

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Groupware Systems (GS) or collaborative systems are software systems that support the development of activities in which a group of users interacts to combine their skills, abilities, and work to achieve a common goal. In this area, an important concept is awareness, which is the information that helps people be aware of events beyond their current tasks. This information makes smoother the use of a collaborative system, so it is a fundamental element in this kind of software. In the design and construction of these types of systems, heuristics are used as design guidelines that serve as a useful evaluation tool for product designers and usability professionals. The current heuristics and guidelines for the design of awareness support focus on supporting the awareness of the team in the shared workspace, without considering elements to support the information needs of the user's own and individual interaction within the workspace. To address this problem and to facilitate the design and integration of awareness support, we developed 13 heuristics that integrate principles of Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Supported Cooperative Work to help groupware designers meet individual and team awareness needs. For evaluating the validity of the proposed heuristics, a structured and iterative consultation process was carried out with experts in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. The proposed heuristics can help software engineers develop collaborative systems that integrate awareness information and satisfy users' contextual information needs. Keywords: Awareness, virtual groups, collaborative work, heuristics.