Social Aspects of Using Large Public Interactive Displays for Collaboration

Large displays have several natural affordances that can simplify small group collaborative work. They are large enough to hold multiple work areas, they are easy to see and can be manipulated directly via touch. When placed into group and public spaces, such displays create pervasively available working surfaces for lightweight, temporary walkup use. The BlueBoard is a large plasma display with touch sensing and a badge reader to identify individuals using the board. The onboard software acts as a thin client giving access to each participant's web-based content (e.g., home pages, project pages). The client also has a set of tools and mechanisms that support rapid exchange of content between those present. The overall design of the BlueBoard is one that is easily learnable (under 5 minutes), very simple to use, and permits novel uses for collaboration. Our initial field study revealed a number of social issues about the use of a large pervasively available display surface, yet indicates that a shared public display space truly has distinct properties that lend themselves to sharing content. Extreme learnability & overall simplicity of design makes BlueBoard a tool for collaboration that supports intermittent, but effective use for side-by-side collaboration between colleagues.