Improving the Effectiveness of Co-located Collaboration Technologies

在日益互联的全球信息社会中，团队通常跨时区和大陆进行协作。然而，在面对面(或同一地点)的环境中与人接触仍然有巨大的优势。人们可以利用各种交流渠道，进行丰富、实时的视觉和听觉交流，并提供重要的上下文信息。这些因素可以提高沟通和协作的效率和效果。然而，当人们希望在共同定位的小组工作期间使用数字信息时，他们被留给了不适合个人或远程协作使用的计算机界面。这导致了尴尬、低效的交互。这项研究计划的首要目标是开发更适合共同定位协作环境的计算机界面，在这种环境中，可用的技术利用物理共享空间以及空间中的人员及其行为。这项工作利用了平板电脑、智能手机、可穿戴设备和笔记本电脑等个人设备日益增长的连接性，以及二十年来的交互式大屏幕研究。这些技术结合在一起，实现了令人兴奋的多设备生态混合，可以支持广泛的协同工作。这些设备和它们的环境也通过大量的车载和附加传感器来检测设备的移动和用户行为，从而变得更加“智能”。这些额外的感官“通道”提供了一个前所未有的机会，可以建立计算机界面，可以更好地检测和响应微妙的行为线索，以实现更有效和高效的计算机交互。因此，这项研究的近期目标是利用“智能”设备的多感官能力来提供更复杂的界面，以利用共处环境以及位于其中的人和设备的物理特性。这项研究将涉及两个主要研究主题，分为七个相辅相成的项目，包括：1)调查有助于在同一地点进行小组工作的社交行为；2)开发多设备用户界面，促进有益的社交行为。开发位于同一位置的计算机界面可以显著提高从日常办公室工作到更高压力、更高风险的各种团队情况下的团队工作的效率和效果，这对我们的现代信息社会具有相当大的影响机会。

In an increasingly connected global information society, teams commonly collaborate across time zones and continents. Yet, there are still tremendous advantages to engaging with people in a face-to-face (or co-located) environment. People can utilize a variety of communication channels, allowing rich, real-time visual and auditory communication, and providing important contextual information. These factors can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of communication and collaboration. However, when people wish to utilize digital information during co-located group work they are left with ill-suited computer interfaces designed for personal or remote collaboration use. This leads to awkward, inefficient interactions. The overarching goal of this research program is to develop computer interfaces better suited to the co-located collaboration context, where the available technology leverages the physically shared space, and the people and their behaviour within the space. This work leverages the increased connectedness of personal devices, including tablets, smartphones, wearables, and laptops, as well as two decades of interactive large display research. Together these technologies allow for an exciting mix of multi-device ecologies that can support a wide range of co-located group work. These devicesand their environmentsare also becoming much “smarter” via a multitude of on-board and add-on sensors that detect device movement and user behaviour. These additional sensory “channels” present an unprecedented opportunity to build computer interfaces that can better detect and respond to subtle behavioural cues to enable more effective and efficient computer interactions. Thus, the near-term goal of this research is to leverage the multi-sensory ability of “smart” devices to provide more sophisticated interfaces that leverage the physicality of the co-located environment and the people and the devices located within. The research will involve two main research themes, broken down into seven complementary projects, including: 1) investigation of social behaviours that facilitate co-located group work, and 2) development of multi-device user interfaces that foster beneficial social behaviours. Developing co-located computer interfaces that significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of group work across a variety of team situations from everyday office work to more high-stress, high-stakes situations has considerable opportunity for impacting our modern information society.