Abstract
10 years ago, Castellani et al. (Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work, vol. 18, no. 2–3, 2009, pp. 199–227, 2009) showed that using just an audio channel for remote troubleshooting can lead to a range of problems and already envisioned a future in which augmented reality (AR) could solve many of these issues. In the meantime, AR technologies have found their way into our everyday lives and using such technologies to support remote collaboration has been widely studied within the fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. In this paper, we contribute to this body of research by reporting on an extensive empirical study within a Fab Lab of troubleshooting and expertise sharing and the potential relevance of articulation work to their realization. Based on the findings of this study, we derived design challenges that led to an AR-based concept, implemented as a HoloLens application, called shARe-it. This application is designed to support remote troubleshooting and expertise sharing through different communication channels and AR-based interaction modalities. Early testing of the application revealed that novel interaction modalities such as AR-based markers and drawings play only a minor role in remote collaboration due to various limiting factors. Instead, the transmission of a shared view and especially arriving at a shared understanding of the situation as a prerequisite for articulation work continue to be the decisive factors in remote troubleshooting.
Highlights
Problems arise in many situations in life
We report on a qualitative empirical study that sought to explore the impact of expertise sharing and troubleshooting within a complex, evolving, information and communications technology (ICT)-driven application domain (3D printing)
Terminology and conceptual barriers As is likely the case with most communities, community-specific vocabulary and certain shared concepts exist amongst Fabrication Laboratory (Fab Lab) participants, 3D printer users, and othergroups
Summary
Electrical service engineers had to go to offices and worksites to repair broken printers (Orr 1996) This type of practice is expensive (O’Neill et al 2005). Bowers and Martin (2000) highlight the concept of “new factories,” which roughly describes telephone call centres for outsourcing engineering support This concept refers to the differentiation between classic industrial factories that focus on manufacturing goods for the customer and new factories that provide a more sophisticated service for the customer “through assembling an army of call-takers each at a terminal to the corporate database” (Bowers and Martin 2000). Such a service might involve offering some form of support without the need to visit the site, saving time and costs and enabling experts to assist more help-seekers
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