Workspace Awareness in Real-Time Distributed Groupware: Framework, Widgets, and Evaluation

Abstract

The rich person-to-person interaction afforded by shared physical workspaces allows people to maintain up-to-the minute knowledge about others’ interaction with the task environment. This knowledge is workspace awareness, part of the glue that allows groups to collaborate effectively. In real-time groupware systems that provide a shared virtual space for collaboration, the possibilities for interaction are impoverished when compared with their physical counterparts. In this paper, we present the concept of workspace awareness as one key to supporting the richness evident in face-to-face interaction. We construct a conceptual framework that describes the elements and mechanisms of workspace awareness, and apply the framework to the design of widgets that help people maintain awareness in real-time distributed groupware. Our evaluation of these widgets has shown that several designs improve the usability of groupware applications.Keywordsworkspace awarenessreal-time groupwareshared workspaceswidgetsCSCW