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Groupware & Cooperative Work. Citation. Author: Jonathan Grudin Homepage: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~grudin Human Interface Laboratory – MCC Published 1990 as a book chapter Currently at U. of California, Irvine
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Citation • Author: Jonathan Grudin • Homepage: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~grudin • Human Interface Laboratory – MCC • Published 1990 as a book chapter • Currently at U. of California, Irvine • J. Grudin, "Groupware and Cooperative Work: Problems and Prospects", The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, B. Laurel (Ed.), 1990, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, pp. 171-185. J. Grudin, "Groupware and Cooperative Work: Problems and Prospects", Readings in Groupware and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: Assisting in Human-Human Collaboration, R.M. Baecker (Ed.), 1993, San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 97-105. (Republication of book chapter.)
Key Points • What is groupware? • How does groupware differ from single-user applications? • Why has groupware failed?
Problems with developing Groupware • Usual interface design problems. In addition, members with different backgrounds use the same groupware application • Must support different and potentially shifting roles • Must study social, political, motivational and economic factors • Difficult to study groups
5 Factors leading to Groupware Failure • Some people do additional work and don’t benefit • Violates social taboos & threatens existing political structures • Doesn’t allow for exception handling and improvisation • Can’t attain meaningful, generalizable analysis and evaluation • Our intuitions for multiuser applications are not reliable
Electronic Mail: Groupware Success? • Equitable balance in work and benefits between sender/recipient (labor/management) • Conversational format compatible with social practices • Asynchronous informal nature makes exception handling flexible • Cost and benefits difficult to evaluate • Our intuitions for e-mail are improving
Organizational Change • Groupware will tend to undermine the traditional hierarchical authority structure • Successful groupware may be those that clearly benefit subordinates: e-mail enables lateral communication • Adhocracy: organizational structure that is able to fuse experts from different specialties into smoothly functioning project teams e.g. university research
Discussion Points • Will ethnographic studies in the workplace help to produce better groupware? Are these studies practical & economically feasible or too time-consuming & obstructive?