Supporting group awareness in synchronous distributed groupware: framework, tools and evaluations

Synchronous distributed groupware systems are computer-based applications that allow geographically dispersed people to work together at the same time. Developing such groupware systems is difficult and complex, and involves a variety of technical and social challenges. One of the challenges is to provide a user with a sense of being in a group and information about other users’ activities—supporting group awareness. Supporting group awareness has been known as one of the most important factors in improving the usability of groupware systems. In face-to-face collaboration, people maintain group awareness naturally via various verbal and non-verbal cues. However, these rich and familiar cues are usually difficult to find over distance when a shared workspace is virtual and dispersed. As a result, group collaboration supported by synchronous distributed groupware is often unnatural, difficult and inefficient compared to the face-to-face counterpart. The aim of this research is to improve support for group awareness in synchronous distributed groupware. This aim consists of two main sub-objectives: understanding the concept of group awareness and developing usable tools to support group awareness. In order to achieve these two objectives, a three-stage research process was carried out, involving operationalising the concept of group awareness, designing awareness tools, and evaluating the usefulness of resulting prototyped tools. First, in order to operationalise the concept of group awareness, the research began with several empirical studies of distributed groupware, including Instant Messaging, collaborative authoring and multi-player computer games. Against the results of these user studies and existing theories of groups, the F@ (read as “fat”) framework of group awareness for synchronous distributed groupware has been developed. F@ contributes to the literature by identifying properties of four essential sub-types of group awareness, referred to as “awareness schools”, including conversational awareness, workspace awareness, contextual awareness and self-awareness. These four awareness schools cover principal knowledge that needs to be provided to maintain group awareness. In addition, F@ presents formal descriptions of fundamental aspects of these four awareness schools using temporal logic. The principles addressed in F@ are important in extending groupware developers’ understanding of group awareness, and can be used as a guideline to design supporting mechanisms. Second, using F@ as a guideline, four innovative awareness prototypes have been developed, including Relaxed Instant Messenger (RIM), Conversation Dock (ConDock), Extended Radar View (ERV) and Modification Director (MD). These prototypes were designed to support group awareness in Instant Messaging and collaborative authoring. For example, RIM integrates the threaded metaphor and the sequential metaphor to enhance awareness in a group conversation. ConDock applies a focus+context visualisation technique to improve users’ awareness of multiple, concurrent conversations. ERV maintains group awareness in collaborative authoring by showing simultaneously users’ working and viewing areas in a shared document. MD supports group awareness in collaborative authoring by helping users stay aware of changes that other users make to their text. Third, several user-based studies were conducted to evaluate the four prototypes. In particular, laboratory-based empirical tests were used to assess the design of RIM, ERV and MD; and a field trial was used to evaluate ConDock. The evaluations confirm that these prototypes meet their design goals and enhance group awareness support significantly. The evaluations also yield several usability issues and provide valuable design feedback for improving user interfaces of the prototypes. Finally, based on the principles of F@ and experience gained from developing the four awareness prototypes, the thesis discusses the potential use of F@ in designing awareness mechanisms for other synchronous distributed groupware systems.