How to Build Awareness-Supported Systems Without Sacrificing Privacy

The success of group activities depends largely on the extent to which collaborators are aware of the characteristics and progress of a given task, the roles and activities of other members, and situational changes. This issue of awareness has become a central theme in both human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work. However, to increase awareness, privacy is typically sacrificed. Emphasizing the importance of privacy, we suggest guidelines on how to deal with the issue of privacy in awareness-centered CSCW systems design, based on two interview studies and an analysis of scenarios inspired by the interviews. We discuss the results with regard to the factors of awareness of task, members, presence, schedule, and activity.

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