48
GROUPWARE DESIGN Lecture 10

groupware DESIGN

  • Upload
    truda

  • View
    60

  • Download
    0

Embed Size (px)

DESCRIPTION

groupware DESIGN. Lecture 10. HCI vs CSCW. HCI – psychology-computing CSCW – sociology-computing. CSCW. “CSCW ( Computer-supported cooperative work ) - computer-assisted coordinated activity carried out by groups of collaborating individuals.” ( Baecker ) - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Citation preview

Page 1: groupware DESIGN

GROUPWARE DESIGNLecture 10

Page 2: groupware DESIGN

HCI vs CSCW• HCI – psychology-computing

• CSCW – sociology-computing

Page 3: groupware DESIGN

CSCW• “CSCW (Computer-supported cooperative work ) - computer-assisted

coordinated activity carried out by groups of collaborating individuals.” (Baecker)

• “Groupware is distinguished from normal software by the basic assumption it makes:  groupware makes the user aware that he is part of a group, while most other software seeks to hide and protect users from each other ...  Groupware ... is software that accentuates the multiple user environment, coordinating and orchestrating things so that users can “see” each other, yet do not conflict with each other.”

• CSCW - to the field of study, which examines how people work together using computer technology. CSCW deals with many interdisciplinary factors like computer science, telecommunication, sociology, psychology and economy(Stein)

• The actual applications that support the collaborative working of users are usually described by the term Groupware

Page 4: groupware DESIGN

Groupware• Can support different activities:

• Direct interpersonal communication• Ideas generation and decision making• Sharing computer objects

• Groupware implementation - more difficult than single-user application:• Network delays• Graphical toolkits assume a single user• Many components may go wrong

Page 5: groupware DESIGN

Key aspects of CSCW• Communication - refers to the capability to integrate

electronic communication such as email with face-to-face and telephone communications

• Collaboration - the facility to share information

• Coordination - reduces conflicting and repetitive actions by individual team members

Page 6: groupware DESIGN

Communication, collaboration• Effective communication – face-to-face communication

• Body language, tone of voice, eye contact – enable smooth conversation

• Video-based communication – not so subtle

• Communication – support for collaboration

• Groups:• Dynamic in composition and behavior• Effective group working determined by environment

Page 7: groupware DESIGN

Face-to-face communication• The most primitive form of communication, but still the most productive

• Involves not just speech and hearing, but also body language and eyegaze

• Personal space – culture dependent

• Eyegaze – tell us that our colleague is listening or not, if he/she is interested, confused, bored

• The position of video cameras in laptops – no effective eye contact

• Body-language – video cameras do not allow to” read” our movements

Page 8: groupware DESIGN

Text-based Communication• Used very often in CSCW

• Speakers’ tone of voice and body language – absent (affective state)

• Email users have developed explicit tokens – emoticons

• People are more critical in emails than in face-to-face communication

• People are more “detached” when communicating by emails (lack of implicit affective communication)

Page 9: groupware DESIGN

Group work• Relationships and roles within a group may change dramatically during

task performance

• Naming of roles can cause problems (Quilt- “commentator” for the subject of a biography, not “author”)

• Group membership and structure may change over time

• Group may divide into subgroups for detailed discussion

• CSCW should support all these issues

• Distributed cognition – thinking is not just in the head, but in external relationships with things in the world and with other people – important to mediate representations

Page 10: groupware DESIGN

CSCW Types• Primarily for communication

• Electronic mail (email) • Structured email — computer conferencing (Netnews, newsgroups,

bulletin boards) messages organised by topic, and sometimes mediated by a convenor.

• Teleconferencing — the use of audio and video links.

• Joint problem solving• Collaborative writing or drawing. • Group decision support systems (GDSS) — the electronic meeting room.

• Integrated systems• Where shared interpersonal communications spaces are integrated with

shared task workspaces.

Page 11: groupware DESIGN

CSCW Classification

• The interaction between people - represented in a two-dimensional grid. • space: Where are people located while they are interacting?

• Time : the participants can interact in a synchronous way, where they act at the same time, but they could also interact delayed in an asynchronous way.

Page 12: groupware DESIGN

CSCW Classification• Same Place Same Time

• interacting people are present at the same place and time.

• The most common examples are meetings and classrooms.

• Work groups usually hold frequent meetings in order to discuss, organize and evaluate topics.

• The CSCW tools used in this area are intended to replace the traditional blackboard (screens that project computer images onto a white screen, individual interconnected computers used by each person - every person has access to a virtual shared space that is seen and accessible by all members)

• Abstract material can be presented by a participant and feedback can be given in a way that is not possible with traditional blackboards.

• advantage: external information (from the Internet), can be retrieved and brought into the discussion very easily.

Page 13: groupware DESIGN

CSCW Classification• Different Time Same Place

• somebody leaves a note for somebody else- a form different-time/same-place interaction

• common example: people work at the same workplace in shifts - need to give instructions to the next shift

• The computer can be used here to enhance existing administrative, filing, and filtering necessities

• CSCW attempts to enhance time management as well as group information and assignment management.

Page 14: groupware DESIGN

CSCW Classification• Same Time Different Place

• Since computers are connected, they have been used by people who reside in geographically distributed locations to communicate and work together.

• Groupware systems usually provide shared workspaces, where users participate in form of virtual meetings - implement the concept of WYSIWIS (What You See Is What I See )

• further supported by audio/video teleconference systems, which allow the participants to hear and see each other.

Page 15: groupware DESIGN

CSCW Classification

• Different Time Different Place

• Example: e-mail, which is by far the most used asynchronous form of groupware.

• E-mail is intended as communication media for two or small groups of users.

• Mailing lists and bulletin boards (newsgroups) are suitable for a large number of participants.

• Hypertext systems like the World Wide Web belong to this field of CSCW.

• Other examples: group calendars and collaborative authoring systems.

Page 16: groupware DESIGN

Groupware• Collaborative software or groupware -software designed to help

people involved in a common task achieve goals.

• One of the earliest definitions of collaborative software is 'intentional group processes plus software to support them’

• Collaboration requires individuals working together in a coordinated fashion, towards a common goal

• Accomplishing the goal is the primary purpose for bringing the team together.

• Collaborative software helps facilitate action-oriented teams working together over geographic distances by providing tools that aid communication, collaboration and the process of problem solving

Page 17: groupware DESIGN

CSCW • Groupware – part of CSCW (Computer Supported

Collaborative Work)

• Both focus on how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems

• The use of collaborative software in the workspace creates a collaborative working environment (CWE). A collaborative working environment supports people in both their individual and cooperative work 

Page 18: groupware DESIGN

Design and implementation issues• technical issues (as in traditional software development)

• the social group processes that should be supported with the groupware application – issues:

• Persistence - the designer of the collaborative space needs to consider the information duration needs and implement accordingly.

• Authentication - when connections are made point-to-point, or when log-in registration is enforced, it's clear who is engaged in the session.

• bandwidth issues at fixed location limited full use of the tools. These are exacerbated with mobile devices.

• Multiple input and output streams bring concurrency issues into the groupware applications.

• Motivational issues are important, especially in settings where no pre-defined group process was in place.

• Reciprocity - related to the motivation aspect 

Page 19: groupware DESIGN

DUTCHDesigning for Users and Tasks from Conceptsto Handles

Page 20: groupware DESIGN

DUTCH• is a design method for complex interactive systems

• require multidisciplinary teams, where the various members each have the responsibility for some aspect of design

• constraints on the use of documentation, representation and communication within the team and in relation to clients and users.

• The needed representations vary in character, from formalisms to scenarios and highly informal sketches.

Page 21: groupware DESIGN

DUTCH• a practical design method requires:

• To define a clear process,• To define the models and representations including their semantics • To support the method and models with tools.

• the design process is task based - it uses the tasks of users as a driving force in the design process.

• the goal - to design usable and useful systems

• it is important to base the design on the work that has to be done by the users

• the users play an important role in acquiring knowledge about their work as well as for usability testing.

Page 22: groupware DESIGN

DUTCH Method• the process consists of four main activities:

1. analyzing a "current" task situation

2. envisioning a future task situation for which information technology is to be designed

3. specifying the information technology to be designed.

In parallel to these activities, 4. evaluation activities make the process cyclic.

Page 23: groupware DESIGN

DUTCH Method• the design team works in groups- different types of

expertise that is needed.

• Typically teams could consist of a variety of disciplines:• Software engineers• Psychologists• Ethnographers• industrial designers

Page 24: groupware DESIGN

Designing for Groupware• DUTCH = GTA +UVM (Users Virtual Machine)

• GTA – Groupware Task Analysis – modeling framework for task knowledge

• Task – an activity performed to reach a certain goal

• Goal – a desired state in the system or task world

• Sometimes it is hard to make the distinction between task and goal

• A task changes something

Page 25: groupware DESIGN

GTA• GTA puts an emphasis on studying a group or

organization and their activities rather than studying single users at work.

• GTA consists of a conceptual framework that specifies relevant aspects of the task world that need attention when designing Groupware.

Page 26: groupware DESIGN

GTA• GTA task models for complex situations are composed of

three different aspects: • agents • work• situation.

Page 27: groupware DESIGN

Agents• "Agents" - indicate people, either individuals or groups, but may also refer to

systems.

• Agents are considered in relation to the task world

• Humans have to be described with relevant characteristics (e.g. the language they speak, typing skills)

• Roles - classes of agents to whom certain subsets of tasks are allocated.

• More than one agent may perform the same role, and a single agent may have several roles at the same time.

• Organization - the relation between agents and roles in respect to task allocation.

• Delegation and mandating responsibilities from one role to another is part of the organization

Page 28: groupware DESIGN

Work

• task - the basic concept

• several tasks can share the same goals.

• the task structure is at least partially hierarchical – tree representation

• the task flow and data flow over time as well as the relation between several concurrent flows need to be understood

• event - a triggering condition for a task, even if the triggering could be caused by something outside the task domain we are considering.

Page 29: groupware DESIGN

Situation• the environment (physical, conceptual, and social) and the objects in the

environment

• Object description includes an analysis of the object structure

• Each thing that is relevant to the work in a certain situation is an object in the sense of task analysis

• Objects may be physical things, or conceptual (non-material) things like messages, gestures, passwords, stories, or signatures

• Objects are described including their structure and attributes.

• The task environment is the current situation for the performance of a certain task - includes agents with roles as well as conditions for task performance.

Page 30: groupware DESIGN

GTA• The design process starts by an extensive task analysis - GTA

• includes a description of the work, of the work situation and of users and other stakeholders of the system to be designed.

• two task models:• The first task model - a descriptive task model and is used for analyzing

the current task situation.

• The second task model is a prescriptive task model for the system that is to be designed.

• for the second task model all design disciplines should participate by contributing ideas which are then described by the task modeling group.

Page 31: groupware DESIGN

GTA• Task Model 1:

• the design of a new system is triggered by an existing task situation

• the current way of performing tasks is not considered optimal, or the availability of new technology is expected to allow improvement over current methods

• A systematic analysis of the current situation may help formulate design requirements, and at the same time may later on allow evaluation of the design

• use a combination of classical HCI techniques such as structured interviews and CSCW techniques such as ethnographic studies and interaction analysis

Page 32: groupware DESIGN

Problems in TM1• The number of roles involved in • the rights a role or agent has for the objects used in the task they

are responsible for or perform.• The frequency of tasks.• The frequency of events.• The number of tasks a role is responsible for.• The number of subroles a role has.• The number of levels in subtasks of a task.• The number of subtasks on the same level of a task.• The objects used in a task.• The roles involved in the task.• The objects that are used by a certain role.• Tasks that are delegated/mandated.

Page 33: groupware DESIGN

GTA• Task Model 2:

• The actual "step" from task model 1 to task model 2 is probably the most important one and at the same time the most open transition in DUTCH design

• Based on the requests from the client and the problems and inconsistencies found in the current situation (task model 1), and wishes and ideas of the users and stakeholders questions for redesign are formulated.

• generate criteria to evaluate all option against affordability, usability, technical feasibility, and any other type of assessment that may seem valid.

• Task model 2 will be formulated and structured in the same way as TM 1,

• development of task model 2 is driven by the results of the analysis of task model 1

Page 34: groupware DESIGN

The design process (van Welie)

Page 35: groupware DESIGN

GTA concepts• Object - used to transfer information between agents

• Objects identification may be performed using interviews (identify nouns in relation to task description)

• Agent - an entity that is considered active. Usually agents are humans but groups of humans or software components may also be considered agents. Agents perform tasks and always play certain roles within the task world

• Role - a meaningful collection of tasks performed by one or more agents. The role is meaningful when it has a clear goal or when it distinguishes between groups of agents

• A role is consequently responsible for the tasks that it encompasses

Page 36: groupware DESIGN

GTA Ontology

Page 37: groupware DESIGN

GTA relationships• Uses. The uses relationship specifies which object is used in executing the task and how it is used. The uses

relationship typically changes the state of the object.

• Triggers. The triggers relationship is the basis for specifying task flow. It specifies that a task is triggered (started) by an event or a task and how it is triggered. Several trigger types are possible such as OR, AND, NEXT to express choice, parallelism or sequences of tasks.

• Plays. Every agent should play one or more roles. The plays relationship also indicates how this role was obtained. For instance by delegation, mandate or a socially determined reason.

• Performed by. The relationship performed by specifies that a task is performed by an agent. This does not mean that agent is also the one who is responsible for the task because this depends on his role and the way it was obtained. When it is not relevant to specify the agent that performs the task, a role can also be specified as the performing entity.

• Has. The has relationship connects tasks to goals. Each task has a goal that defines the reason for performing the task. A goal could be either a personal or business goal.

• Subtask/Subgoal. The subtask/subgoal relationship describes the task/goal decomposition.

• Subrole. The subrole relationship brings roles into a hierarchical structure. The subrole relationship states that a role includes other roles including the responsibility for the task that encompasses the role. When a role has subroles the task responsibilities are added up for the role.

Page 38: groupware DESIGN

Analyzing the current task situation (Task model 1)

• The design of a new product triggered by a current task situation (not optimal or improvements are expected by introducing new technology)

• Task analysis helps formulate design requirements and later on evaluation

• Task model 1 describes the current real situation by observing or asking the people who are involved

Page 39: groupware DESIGN

Envisioning the future task situation (Task Model 2)

• redesign of the task structure in order to include technological solutions for problems and technological answers to requirement

• Problems identified in TM1:• Task structure not optimal (high frequency, redundant, too many

subtasks)• Differences between the formal and actual task performance• Inefficient interaction in organization• Inconsistencies in tasks• People are doing things they are not allowed to do

Page 40: groupware DESIGN

Specifying technology (The user's virtual machine)• detailed description of the system as far as it is of direct

relevance to the end-user

• "virtual machine" - indicate "the functionality of the system ... where implementation details and details of the underlying hardware are suppressed“

• user's virtual machine (UVM) which indicates the total of user relevant knowledge on the technology, both semantics (what the system offers the user for task delegation) and syntax (how task delegation to the system has to be expressed by the user)

Page 41: groupware DESIGN

Detailed Design• When making the transition from task model 2 to the

UVM, the users’ tasks and the relevant objects in the task world determine the first sketch of the application.

• The task and object structure is used to create the main displays and navigational structure.

• the iterative refinement process takes off together with the use of explicit design knowledge such as guidelines and design patterns.

Page 42: groupware DESIGN

Detailed design• Results of task analysis and modeling – used to create

the UI• Aspects to be considered:

• Functionality• Dialog structure• Presentation

• Gap between analysis and design • Analysis results: detailed description of the domain and aspects to

be improved (design goals)• Design : create a solution that meet the requirements (design

goals)• Engineering+ Creativity needed

Page 43: groupware DESIGN

Detailed design• The GAP refers to:

• What are the main displays• Which data must be represented and which are merely attributes• Which is the appropriate interaction style• How should the user navigate through the interface structure• How is the functionality accessible +• Technological constraints and client wishes

• In practice: initial design – evaluation - iteration

Page 44: groupware DESIGN

Detailed design• Guidelines for bridging the gap:

• The Bridge method (Dayton):• Express user requirements in task flows• Mapping task flows to task objects

• Identify which task objects need to be included in the system• Identify the relevant attributes of the task objects• Identify relevant actions on task objects (actions can be ordered in

menus)• Identify groups of attributes st only the relevant task attributes are

shown while performing a task – views• Identify object containment relationships – screens

• Mapping task objects to GUI objects using a specific platform style

Page 45: groupware DESIGN

Detailed design• Refers to specification of the technology to be designed

• This phase is started by task model 2 which contains specification on the task level but does not contain any details concerning the technology

• decisions have to be made on the look and feel of the technology including the dialogue design and hardware ergonomics/design

• The task specification is used as a basis for the functionality of the technology as far as relevant to users

• Using the task structures an initial grouping of functions and main navigation structure is described

• choices are made that affect other design activities (hardware design can pose restrictions on the number of buttons or screen estate that is available)

Page 46: groupware DESIGN

Design Representations• Task models

• GOMS – formal, probably hard to understand by other teams• CTT – task trees, more easy to be handled by different

professionals

• Detailed design:• Sketches, interactive prototypes, hardware prototypes

Page 47: groupware DESIGN

Scenarios• Used to build Task Model 2 and for evaluation

• Scenarios are informal descriptions of tasks that are likely to occur together in a specified situation including well-described user involvement.

• Some scenarios can be heuristically evaluated by a group of designers, possibly together with future users.

• in some cases scenarios show their value when actually acted out - try as many variations within their task description.

Page 48: groupware DESIGN

Scenarios - example•  Mr. and Mrs. Macomb are retired schoolteachers who are now in their

70s. Their Social Security checks are an important part of their income. They've just sold their big house and moved to a small apartment. They know that one of the many chores they need to do now is tell the Social Security Administration that they have moved. They don't know where the nearest Social Security office is and it's getting harder for them to do a lot of walking or driving. If it is easy and safe enough, they would like to use the computer to notify the Social Security Administration of their move. However, they are somewhat nervous about doing a task like this by computer. They never used computers in their jobs. However, their son, Steve, gave them a computer last year, set it up for them, and showed them how to use email and go to websites. They have never been to the Social Security Administration's website, so they don't know how it is organized. Also, they are reluctant to give out personal information online, so they want to know how safe it is to tell the agency about their new address this way.