Oftentimes for HCI project meetings, our group meets in the infosci office and works on our assignment using Google Docs. This allows us to all work on the same doc without crowding around one screen, although it still leaves the option for people that didn’t bring a laptop to look off someone else’s.
Throughout this kind of interaction, a few of the kinds of issues Stacey D. Scott et al. mentioned in their paper System Guideline for Co-located, Collaborative Work on a Tabletop Display come up, in both good and bad ways. Some of the factors I feel Google handles quite well are transitions between activities, transitions between personal and group work, and simultaneous user interactions. Besides editing text documents, our group can easily create other docs to help us (such as spreadsheets) and give everyone else access. Because of the way the system works, we use it the same way whether we are in a group meeting setting, or working individually – the transition is seamless. Similarly, simultaneous user interactions are for the most part, not a problem. Users can all edit the same text document at once, and run into problems only when they happen to be changing the same sentence in different ways.
I feel that the most significant issues that Google doesn’t really handle well are flexible user arrangements, and natural interpersonal interaction. Flexible user arrangements just isn’t addressed at all – the system is designed for internet browsers, which are typically accessed by individuals on their own computer screens, so it doesn’t really provide for having several people gathered around one display. It probably doesn’t have any special accommodations for multiple input devices either. I also feel that natural interpersonal interactions are hindered, when not in a close proximity. Although Google saw it fit to equip their email client with chat capabilities, for some reason they haven’t implemented it in the docs application yet. I really feel the absence of this kind of collaborative feature when I can see that group members are currently viewing the doc with me, but can’t directly type to them.
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Google docs definitely handles transitions between activities because of the fact that everyone can see what is being worked on. The only real problem is trying to as you said have interpersonal interactions which is not seen through computer screens.
ReplyDeleteGoogle Docs is great because it allows you to share a document without having to share a single-display. However, if people do choose to share a display, its usefulness declines, and it becomes much more like a regular text document. Like you said, it doesn’t really offer any special features for that type of situation, and it doesn’t allow for multiple input devices on the same screen. The only benefit of working around a shared screen is the ability to communicate freely, something that Google Docs is lacking without having a chat feature.
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