HCC: Physical and Digital Design for Fluid Collaboration

计算技术的一个承诺是随时随地提供信息。然而，即使在办公室等计算机化程度最高的环境中，这一愿景也尚未完全实现。相反，许多工作场所遭受了一个不幸的讽刺：旨在解决工作场所问题的系统已经产生了新的困难。人们擅长于无缝管理社会和信息流，然而，旨在支持这种协作的技术基础往往是脆弱的，适应缓慢。与这种技术基础设施的交互变得突出，迫使用户关注技术本身，而不是手头的工作。这种脱节在高度动态、流动的合作形式面前变得更加明显，在这种合作形式中，技术惯性减缓了交流的步伐。重新配置我们的技术基础设施很少像在会议室中移动椅子一样简单或自然。这项拟议的研究旨在创建，部署和评估一个有助于而不是阻碍流畅协作的技术基础设施系统。它将试图将数字基础设施结合起来？空间中的服务、应用、协议和设备？to the physical物理infrastructure基础设施of that space空间.这将使数字基础设施对物理领域中采取的行动做出响应;同样，它将使物理基础设施成为向用户传达空间中数字能力的可供性和反馈的媒介。这种耦合将使信息和协作工件从物理域到数字域的流体运动，反之亦然。其成果不仅是一系列旨在增强协作的数字服务，而且是将这些服务深度集成到物理环境中，沿着一系列设计指南、原则和评估方法，用于指导如何成功融合物理环境和数字环境，以更好地支持流畅的协作。这项研究具有巨大的实际意义，潜在地提高知识工作者的生产力，通过减少与即时使用协作技术相关的挫折和效率低下。与Steelcase的强大合作伙伴关系以及公开发布原型的承诺应有助于将关键发现快速转移到行业。原型设计和评估活动将有助于在格鲁吉亚理工学院的新的以人为本的计算程序的各个层次的学生参与。

One promise of computing technology is to deliver information, anytime anywhere. Yet, even in the most computerized settings such as offices, this vision has yet to be fully realized. Instead, many workplaces suffer from an unfortunate irony: the very systems designed to solve workplace problems have created new difficulties. People are expert at seamlessly managing social and information flows, however, the technological substrate intended to support such collaboration is often brittle and slow to adapt. Interactions with this technological infrastructure become foregrounded, forcing users to attend to the technology itself rather than to the work at hand. This disconnect becomes all the more apparent in the face of highly dynamic, fluid forms of collaboration in which technological inertia slows the pace of interchange. Reconfiguring our technical infrastructure is rarely as easy or as natural as moving chairs together in a meeting room.This proposed research aims to create, deploy, and evaluate a system of technical infrastructure that will help rather than hinder fluid collaboration. It will attempt to couple the digital infrastructure ? the services, applications, protocols, and devices in a space ? to the physical infrastructure of that space. This will make the digital infrastructure responsive to actions taken in the physical realm; likewise, it will make the physical infrastructure a medium for conveying affordances and feedback of the digital capabilities in a space to its users. This coupling will enable the fluid movement of information and collaborative artifacts from the physical domain to the digital, and vice versa. The results will be not only a set of digital services designed to enhance collaboration, but a deep integration of those services into the physical environment, along with a set of design guidelines, principles, and evaluation methodology for how to successfully blend the physical and the digital to better support fluid collaboration.Broader Impact: This research has tremendous practical import to potentially improve the productivity of knowledge workers by decreasing the frustration and inefficiencies associated with on-the-fly use of collaborative technologies. The strong partnership with Steelcase and a commitment to public release of prototypes should facilitate rapid transfer of key findings to industry. The prototype design and evaluation activities will serve to engage students at all levels in Georgia Tech's new Human-Centered Computing program.