Understanding CSCW: Models, Tools, and Case Studies

Computer Supported Coooperative Work (CSCW) CS260 – Human Computer Interactions September 17, 2006

Goals • Exposure to a couple CSCW type experiments • Overview some interesting case studies of CSCW applications. • Learn some socially relevant aspects for CSCW design • Have some fun.

Investment Game • I have some extra money. Let me give to it to you guys. • Each of you will be paired off with someone else. Half of you will know who you are paired with, the other half will not. • I will give each of you $5. You decide whether or not you want to cooperatively invest with your partner (whether or not you know who this person is). • Those of you who know who your partners are get to talk to them first. • Everyone will make their decisions in confidentiality. • If neither of you cooperate, you guys get to keep your $5. If you both cooperate, then I’ll give each person $6. If one person cooperates and the other doesn’t, the person who doesn’t cooperate gets to keep their money AND their partner’s money ($10). The person who does cooperate goes home with nothing.

Group Work • Half of you will work individually, half of you will work in groups of 3. • You’re coming up with two lists: • CSCW Applications (AIM, Netmeeting, Wikis, etc) you use • Things you do with CSCW applications

Group Work • Those of you who worked in teams of 3, please count the number of items you have in your list. • Those of you who worked individually, please group up in teams of three and count the number of unique items you have in your list.

VR Chats

What is CSCW? • “CSCW is about groups of users – how to design systems to support their work as a group and how to understand the effect of technology on their work patterns. • What makes studying CSCW so difficult? • The very thing that makes CSCW important is the very thing that makes it so difficult – groups • We are great at working in groups. We are horrible at knowing why!

Models for CSCW – By Use • Tools that support Understanding – capturing common understanding. • Tools that support Direct Communication – supporting the direct communication between participants • Tools that support Control and Feedback – supporting the participants’ interaction with shared work objects Understanding Participant Participant Direct Communication Control and Feedback Artifact

Grudin’s Time/Space Model

Writely Time • Small Groups • Organize your CSCW tools according to these models of CSCW. • Anything doesn’t fit quite right? Anything fits in more than one area? • Compare and Contrast these two models.

Case Study 1: Structured Email

Speech Acts – Conversations for Action (1910’s) Alison: Have you got the market survey on chocolate mouse? Brian: Sure. Rummages in filing cabinet and hands it to Alison Brian: There you are. Alison: Thanks.

Coordinator – (Winograd, 1988) • Applied Speech Acts theory to a tool for supporting communication as structured email. • Alison selects appropriate speech act • Alison enters “Have you got the market survey on chocolate mouse?” • Brian receives Alison’s message, is told it’s a request and must select from valid conversational moves (promise, counter-offer, decline, etc). • A default messages is produced, “I promise to do as you request”. Brian may alter this message. • Interaction is not considered complete until Speech Act is in a terminal state.

Writely Time • Small Groups • How do you think Coordinator did? • Why? • Consider the socially relevant aspects of Coordinator and the Speech Acts theory.

Coordinator failed in practice • Most people have abandoned Coordinator. • People who use coordinator ignore the Speech Acts elements and use it as a regular email client. • Coordinator only remained in use with strong authoritarian orders from management • “The world’s first fascist computer system”

Lessons Learned • Do not impose a theory which captures a limited subset of the richness of human communications on an otherwise more expressive communication tool • People do not like tools that undermine their authority and limit their power. • Do not make what is generally implicit, explicit; forcing people to think about their actions in a non-productive way. • People are experts at communicating. They are not experts at how people communicate.

Workflow • Documents carry meta-data that describes their flow through the organization: • Document X should be completed by Celeste by 4/15 • Doc X should then be reviewed by Hannes by 4/22 • Doc X should then be approved by Yongwook by 4/29 • Doc X should finally be received by Kenghao by 5/4 • The document “knows” its route. With the aid of the system, itwill send reminders to its users, and then forward automatically at the time limit.

Workflow: Response to Coordinator • Workflow graceful falls back to regular email practices if it’s not used. • If people don’t like workflow, they don’t have to use it and it works like normal email • Workflow automates what we do anyways • We no longer have to nag our colleagues to finish something. • Many workflow implementations today in most enterprise software systems… • Lotus (earliest implementation), PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP, etc

Case Study 2: Video Conferencing

When you interact with a face, what do you want it to do?

Answer • “The face is so expressive, so subtle, so filled with meaning. We ascribe character to and read emotion in any face, especially a realistically rendered one. A face in the interface is replete with social messages, but a poorly design one will send many unintended ones [and fail to send intended ones].” –Judith Donath • We want the face to do things which can convey the social messages we intend and not convey the ones we don’t. • An understanding of what the face does and how it does it is still largely not understood. • How do you design a system with limited understanding of what it’s suppose to do? • What happens when you do it incorrectly.

Persuasiveness(Werkhoven et al., 2001) • 2 participants and 1 confederate performed the “Lost At the Moon Task” • Individual ranking, group ranking with dominant confederate, then individual ranking again. • Persuasive power measured as difference between pre- and post-group rankings.

Trust Formation • 3-person groups • 4 conditions – text, audio, video, face-to-face • Played 30 rounds of a prisoner’s dilemma game called Daytrader • Every 5 rounds, strong incentive to betray trust • Trust development was delayed in audio/video • Defections were more likely with video/audio than FTF communication. • Little difference between video and audio

Writely Time • Small Groups • What socially relevant aspects of video conferencing systems do you think are contributing to these effects (reduced persuasion abilities, delayed and fragile trust)?

Socially Relevant Factors • Network delay • Image Size • Head or Head+Torso • Conception of where the other participant is • Reduced Deictic Ability • Distorted Eye Contact • Shared Context • Methods for Floor Control • Presentation of power structures • Lots and lots and lots of other things!

MultiView Video Conferencing

0 10 20 35 50 Mona Lisa Effect

1 3 2 Corresponds to virtual viewing position

MultiView Video Conferencing

MultiView Directional Display • Big, Bright, High Resolution Display • Each view is provided by a projector • The projected image is reflected directly back in the direction of the projector • The image can be seen at varying heights only behind the projector

MultiView Video Conferencing • Studies Group-To-Group Interactions (HARD) • Studies the effect of Spatially Faithfulness • Preserves Geometric Relationships of Round Table Meeting • Reproduces unique and correct perspective for each participant. • Preserves Deictic Cues • Preserves Gaze • Preserves shared context (e.g. Everyone knows who’s looking at who) • Other relevant (but not tested in our research) design issues • Life sized images • Captures Head+Body • Low Latency

Trust Formation • Hypothesis: MultiView will allow participants to establish trust faster than standard video conferencing • Measure: Daytrader (a prisoner’s dilemma game) • 196 Participants, 33 teams

Trust Formation • 30 rounds of DayTrader. • In each round, each group is given 60 credits • They must decide how much to invest cooperatively with the other team, and how much to invest individually on their own without knowing the decision of the other team • Shared investment returns 50% on average. Returns are split in half among the two teams regardless of initial investment. • Every 5 rounds, 90 credits will be awarded to the team that has earned the most in the past 5 rounds. • Participants will be paid according to how many credits they’ve earned.

Results • MultiView showed higher levels of cooperative investment (2627.63) than regular video conferencing (1928.18). It tended toward the levels in face-to-face (2600.09) • MultiView showed reduced levels of fragile trust (b=-3.48) when compared to standard video conferencing (b=-4.52), It tended toward face-to-face levels (-3.18). • No conclusive conclusions could be drawn on delayed trust phenomenon. • A likert scale trust inventory was given after the games. Investment amounts correlated to trust score, confirming that this game measures trust.

Lessons Learned • Inappropriate adding of information channels may convey unintended messages or not convey intended ones. • “false eye contact” • When using a new technology, people bring in prior knowledge of how the world works, especially about social patterns and norms. Disruption of these social patterns can be catastrophic. CSCW need to minimize the amount of social accommodation required to use the system. • Video conferencing systems break many assumptions of how social people behave (e.g. eye-contact patterns) requiring users to accommodate for new social patterns

Group Exercise • Form Small Groups (~3) • Pick one CSCW applications • Examples: facebook, friendster, email, instant messager, irc, newsgroups, mailing lists, writely, google spreadsheet, etc • How does it fit into the models described earlier (Participant/Artifact and Time/Space) • What are the socially relevant aspects that a design of such a system needs to take into account? • How does it do it? Does it do it well? How does it fail?

Understanding CSCW: Models, Tools, and Case Studies