Improving the Effectiveness of Co-located Collaboration Technologies

在联系日益紧密的全球信息社会中，团队通常跨越时区和大洲进行协作。然而，在面对面（或同处一地）的环境中与人交流仍然有巨大的优势。人们可以利用多种沟通渠道，实现丰富、实时的视觉和听觉交流，并提供重要的语境信息。这些因素可以提高沟通和协作的效率和效果。然而，当人们希望在同一地点的小组工作中利用数字信息时，他们留下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于协同协作环境的计算机接口，在这种环境中，可用的技术利用物理共享空间，以及空间内的人和他们的行为。这项工作充分利用了个人设备（包括平板电脑、智能手机、可穿戴设备和笔记本电脑）日益增长的连通性，以及二十年来的交互式大型显示器研究。总之，这些技术允许一个令人兴奋的多设备生态组合，可以支持广泛的共址组工作。这些设备及其环境也变得更加“智能”，通过大量的机载和附加传感器来检测设备的运动和用户行为。这些额外的感官“通道”为构建计算机界面提供了前所未有的机会，可以更好地检测和响应微妙的行为线索，从而实现更有效和高效的计算机交互。因此，本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，以利用共存环境的物理特性以及位于其中的人员和设备。这项研究将涉及两个主要的研究主题，分为七个互补的项目，包括：1)促进同地小组工作的社会行为的调查；2)促进有益社会行为的多设备用户界面的开发。开发可显著提高从日常办公室工作到更高压、高风险情况的各种团队情况下的小组工作效率和有效性的共址计算机接口，有相当大的机会影响我们的现代信息社会。

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.