Sound Support for Collaboration

Shared work often involves fluid transitions between relatively focussed collaboration, division of labour, general awareness and serendipitous communication. This leads to a tension in the design of software systems meant to support shared work: focussed collaboration implies the need to coordinate people's views of work objects, while division of labour requires individual control over views. A similar tension exists in the office environment as well: group engagement in the workplace depends on a shared context, but individual work is facilitated by privacy and freedom of action. Auditory cues have the potential to reduce these tensions because graphics and sound can provide two independent ways to present and obtain information. I illustrate the potential of sound in collaborative systems with observations drawn from two systems: the ARKola simulation, which explores the effects of sound on collaboration within a workstation environment; and EAR, in which auditory cues are used to increase general awareness of events and encourage group engagement within the workplace itself. These examples suggest useful functions sound can play in collaborative systems.

[1]  R. Anderson,et al.  Working for Profit: The Social Organisation of Calculation in an Entrepreneurial Firm , 1989 .

[2]  John Bowers,et al.  Studies in computer supported cooperative work: theory, practice and design , 1990 .

[3]  P. Bourdieu Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste* , 2018, Food and Culture.

[4]  Jonathan Grudin,et al.  Why CSCW applications fail: problems in the design and evaluationof organizational interfaces , 1988, CSCW '88.

[5]  Dan Shapiro,et al.  Harmonious Working and CSCW: Computer Technology and Air Traffic Control , 1990 .

[6]  William W. Gaver Auditory Icons: Using Sound in Computer Interfaces , 1986, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[7]  T. Kuhn,et al.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. , 1964 .

[8]  Clarence A. Ellis,et al.  Design and use of a group editor , 1988 .

[9]  Mark S. Granovetter Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness , 1985, American Journal of Sociology.

[10]  John Urry,et al.  The End of Organized Capitalism , 1989 .

[11]  O. Williamson,et al.  Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. , 1977 .

[12]  William W. Gaver,et al.  Effective sounds in complex systems: the ARKOLA simulation , 1991, CHI.

[13]  George O. Goodman,et al.  Communication and collaboration: facilitating cooperative work through communication , 1987 .

[14]  Kjeld Schmidt,et al.  CSCW: Four Characters in Search of a Context , 1989, ECSCW.

[15]  Randall B. Smith A Prototype Futuristic Technology for Distance Education , 1992 .

[16]  Kaj Grønbæk,et al.  Cooperative prototyping studies—users and designers a dental case record system , 1990 .

[17]  Allan Kuchinsky,et al.  The dynamics of small group decision-making using electronic mail , 1990 .

[18]  Pelle Ehn,et al.  Work-oriented design of computer artifacts , 1989 .

[19]  Robert E. Kraut,et al.  The VideoWindow system in informal communication , 1990, CSCW '90.

[20]  Bill Buxton,et al.  EuroPARC's integrated interactive intermedia facility (IIIF): early experiences , 1990 .

[21]  Philippe C. Schmitter,et al.  Sectors in Modern Capitalism: Modes of Governance and Variations in Performance , 1990 .

[22]  Thomas P. Moran,et al.  The workaday world as a paradigm for CSCW design , 1990, CSCW '90.

[23]  Randall B. Smith Experiences with the Alternate Reality Kit: An Example of the Tension between Literalism and Magic , 1987, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[24]  Robert W. Root,et al.  Design of a multi-media vehicle for social browsing , 1988, CSCW '88.

[25]  Terry Winograd,et al.  Understanding computers and cognition - a new foundation for design , 1987 .

[26]  William W. Gaver The SonicFinder: An Interface That Uses Auditory Icons , 1989, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[27]  M. Kyng,et al.  Computers and Democracy: A Scandinavian Challenge , 1987 .

[28]  Marilyn Mantei Capturing the capture concepts: a case study in the design of computer-supported meeting environments , 1988, CSCW '88.

[29]  W. Diebold,et al.  The Second Industrial Divide , 1985 .

[30]  Lennart Lövstrand,et al.  Being Selectively Aware with the Khronika System , 1991, ECSCW.

[31]  Riitta Hellman,et al.  Emancipation of and by Computer-Supported Cooperative Work , 1988, Scand. J. Inf. Syst..

[32]  Thomas P. Moran,et al.  Design rationale: the argument behind the artifact , 1989, CHI '89.

[33]  William W. Gaver,et al.  AUDITORY ICONS IN LARGE-SCALE COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENTS , 1990, SGCH.

[34]  Berndt Brehmer,et al.  Distributed decision making. Cognitive models for cooperative work , 1991 .

[35]  Kjeld Schmidt,et al.  Computer support for cooperative work in advanced manufacturing , 1991 .