Let's search together, but not too close! An analysis of communication and performance in collaborative information seeking

Communication is considered to be one of the most essential components of collaboration, but our understanding as to which form of communication provides the most optimal cost-benefit balance lacks severely. To help investigate effects of various communication channels on a collaborative project, we conducted a user study with 30 pairs (60 participants) in three different conditions - co-located, remotely located with text chat, and remotely located with text as well as audio chat, in an exploratory search task. Using both quantitative and qualitative data analysis, we found that teams with remotely located participants were more effective in terms of being able to explore more diverse information. Adding audio support for remote collaboration helped participants to lower their cognitive load as well as negative emotions compared to those working in the same space. We also show how these findings could help design more effective systems for collaborative information seeking tasks using adequate and appropriate communication. We argue that collaboration is an important aspect of human-centered IR, and that our work provides interesting insights into people doing information seeking/retrieval in collaboration.

[1]  Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon,et al.  Impact of Video-Mediated Communication on Simulated Service Encounters , 1996, Interact. Comput..

[2]  John C. Tang,et al.  Three's company: understanding communication channels in three-way distributed collaboration , 2010, CSCW '10.

[3]  Carol Collier Kuhlthau Inside the Search Process: Information Seeking from the User's Perspective. , 1991 .

[4]  D. Watson,et al.  Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. , 1988, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[5]  Steve Whittaker,et al.  The role of vision in face-to-face and mediated communication. , 1997 .

[6]  Jette Hyldegård,et al.  Collaborative information behaviour--exploring Kuhlthau's Information Search Process model in a group-based educational setting , 2006, Inf. Process. Manag..

[7]  Anne H. Anderson,et al.  Introducing objects in spoken dialogue: The influence of conversational setting and cognitive load on the articulation and use of referring expressions , 2007 .

[8]  J. Foster Collaborative information seeking and retrieval , 2006 .

[9]  R. P. Fishburne,et al.  Derivation of New Readability Formulas (Automated Readability Index, Fog Count and Flesch Reading Ease Formula) for Navy Enlisted Personnel , 1975 .

[10]  Herbert H. Clark,et al.  Grounding in communication , 1991, Perspectives on socially shared cognition.

[11]  R. Daft,et al.  Information Richness. A New Approach to Managerial Behavior and Organization Design , 1983 .

[12]  Chirag Shah,et al.  Coagmento- A Collaborative Information Seeking, Synthesis and Sense-Making Framework (an integrated , 2009 .

[13]  Chirag Shah,et al.  Collaborative Information Seeking: A Literature Review , 2010 .

[14]  Nesrin Özdener,et al.  The effects of synchronous CMC on speaking proficiency and anxiety: text versus voice chat , 2008 .

[15]  Deborah H. Gruenfeld,et al.  Groups, Tasks, and Technology , 1993 .

[16]  Jan Kratzer,et al.  Managing creative team performance in virtual environments: an empirical study in 44 R&D teams , 2006 .

[17]  Meredith Ringel Morris,et al.  A survey of collaborative web search practices , 2008, CHI.

[18]  E A Smith,et al.  Automated readability index. , 1967, AMRL-TR. Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories.

[19]  Jette Hyldegård,et al.  Beyond the search process - Exploring group members' information behavior in context , 2009, Inf. Process. Manag..

[20]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Awareness and coordination in shared workspaces , 1992, CSCW '92.

[21]  Nikolaos M. Avouris,et al.  Heterogeneity of learning material in synchronous computer-supported collaborative modelling , 2005, Comput. Educ..

[22]  Anne H. Anderson,et al.  Adapting communicative strategies to computer mediated communication: an analysis of task performance and dialogue structure , 2003 .

[23]  Madhu C. Reddy,et al.  A finger on the pulse: temporal rhythms and information seeking in medical work , 2002, CSCW '02.

[24]  Chirag Shah,et al.  Coagmento: A system for supporting collaborative information seeking , 2011, ASIST.

[25]  Y. Connie Yuan,et al.  Access to Information in Connective and Communal Transactive Memory Systems , 2007, Commun. Res..

[26]  Diane H. Sonnenwald,et al.  Communication roles that support collaboration during the design process , 1996 .

[27]  Joseph S. Valacich,et al.  The Effects of Media and Task on User Performance: A Test of the Task-Media Fit Hypothesis , 2000 .

[28]  M. E. Shaw Group dynamics : the psychology of small group behavior , 1971 .

[29]  Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon,et al.  Face-to-face and video mediated communication: a comparison of dialogue structure and task performance , 1997 .

[30]  Diane H. Sonnenwald,et al.  Information behavior in dynamic group work contexts: interwoven situational awareness, dense social networks and contested collaboration in command and control , 2000, Inf. Process. Manag..

[31]  David M. Nichols,et al.  Browsing is a collaborative process , 1997, Inf. Process. Manag..

[32]  Yutaka Matsushita,et al.  An approach to encounters and interaction in a virtual environment , 1993, CSC '93.

[33]  Roberto I. González-Ibáñez,et al.  Evaluating the synergic effect of collaboration in information seeking , 2011, SIGIR.

[34]  Bernard J. Jansen,et al.  A model for understanding collaborative information behavior in context: A study of two healthcare teams , 2008, Inf. Process. Manag..

[35]  Darren Gergle,et al.  Emotion rating from short blog texts , 2008, CHI.

[36]  W. Jochems,et al.  The Effect of Functional Roles on Group Efficiency , 2004 .

[37]  T. D. Wilson,et al.  Review of: Nahl, Diane and Bilal, Dania, Eds. Information and emotion: the emergent affective paradigm in information behavior research and theory. Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc., 2007 , 2008, Inf. Res..

[38]  Peter Ingwersen,et al.  The Application of Work Tasks in Connection with the Evaluation of Interactive Information Retrieval Systems: Empirical Results , 1999, MIRA.

[39]  S. Hart,et al.  Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of Empirical and Theoretical Research , 1988 .

[40]  G. Marchionini,et al.  Awareness in collaborative information seeking , 2010, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[41]  John Short,et al.  The social psychology of telecommunications , 1976 .

[42]  Judith S. Olson,et al.  What mix of video and audio is useful for small groups doing remote real-time design work? , 1995, CHI '95.

[43]  Ryen W. White,et al.  Assessing the scenic route: measuring the value of search trails in web logs , 2010, SIGIR.

[44]  Jamshid Beheshti,et al.  Gender differences in collaborative Web searching behavior: an elementary school study , 2002, Inf. Process. Manag..

[45]  Gordon S. Blair,et al.  CSCW and Distributed Systems: The Problem of Control , 1991, ECSCW.

[46]  Jonathan Grudin,et al.  Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers , 1994, CACM.

[47]  Stephanie D. Teasley,et al.  Perspectives on socially shared cognition , 1991 .

[48]  Tom Rodden,et al.  A Survey of CSCW Systems , 1991, Interact. Comput..

[49]  Eric Horvitz,et al.  SearchTogether: an interface for collaborative web search , 2007, UIST.