Improving the Effectiveness of Co-located Collaboration Technologies

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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.