Supporting Transitions in Work : Informing Groupware Design by Understanding Whiteboard Use

Many groupware tools focus on supporting collaborat ive real-time work; yet in practice, work spans many di fferent modes: from collaborative to independent activity, and from synchronous, real-time activity to asynchronous act ivity. How can we design tools that allow users to transit ion between these modes of activity smoothly in their w ork? We consider how the common office and domestic whiteboard are used for both independent and asynch ro ous activity, showing how users employ the whiteboard t o transition between these and other modes of activit y. Our findings suggest that the whiteboard does so by bei ng a contextually located display with visually persiste nt content, facilitating transitions because it is a f lexible, common tool enabling the creation of representation s that are useful across modes. We explore the design implications of these findings with respect to inte ractive whiteboard tools, and discuss how they can be appli ed more generally to inform the design of groupware tools. Author

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