Walking the walk is doing the work—flexible interaction management in video-supported cooperative work

This paper considers the effects of video-based commumcation systems on individual, local mobility in the everyday, practical ‘space’ of work. Previous academic research emphasises how video can extend and enhance space. We found, doing a focused ethnography, that video, in a trade-off between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ mobility, restricted the use of personal, workaday, physical space. Issues thus raised for design of video-based systems are physical mobility in workaday space during sessions; modal and temporal switching between different means of communication; individual work during collective activities: and, alternating between tasks as part of articulating the work.