Design Team Members: Wayne Giang, Sunny Liang, Amita Rampal
Supervisor: Professor Scott
Background
Collaboration plays a very critical role in all areas of engineering and business. People come together in groups to discuss ideas to inform their teammates about what they are working on and receive feedback from them to make improvements. Computer supported collaboration is important in these cases and has evolved over the years. Some of these devices are personal devices, such as laptops, so the users have access to individual information during group meetings. Tools such as projectors are used as a means to share information with the group so everyone has access to the information being presented.
This project focuses on the transition between working on individual information and sharing this information with the fellow group members. Individual information refers to data that is primarily relevant to only a single group member, yet may have elements that are important to the rest of the group. Shared information refers to information that may be useful to all group members, and is visible to the entire group. A naval command center was chosen as the setting to gather realistic team tasks and to learn more about the environment the users would be in including the tools they use and the information they share. Aboard a maritime surveillance ship, the crew in the command centre is responsible for “building a picture” of what is occurring in their operating range. Operators must combine different sensor outlooks into one coherent view.
Project description
There is a lack of support for sharing personal information especially data that needs to remain private. The proposed solution will use tabletop displays to share information. Also, personal data devices (PDDs) will be used in conjunction with tabletop displays to support individual needs. Challenges with this project include establishing the differences between individual data and shared data, designing an interface for manipulation of individual data on the PDD, and designing interaction methods for moving data from the PDD to the tabletop. Important issues such as privacy, control and ownership of information and information overload will also be considered.
Many PDDs were considered such as laptops, tablet PCs, PDAs, head mounted displays, smart phones etc. They were compared on many criterions such as portability, pervasiveness, peripheral vision, privacy, social implications and screen real estate. Based on the importance of each of these criterions and how well they are met by the different PDDs, the tablet PC emerged as the optimal solution for our purposes.
As a part of this project, an interface will be designed for a PDD that will work with tabletop displays to support team collaboration.
Design methodology
User Centered Design Methodology will be followed. The three important focal points will be:
-
Identify
Needs
and
Requirement
Users who work in collaborative team environments will be interviewed. Since the naval command center scenario has been chosen, the users will be operators and other personnel who work in the command center. They will be asked a series of questions about their current practices during collaboration, the type of information shared and how that information is modified based on the audience. If it is not possible to interview these users, alternate studies will be developed to assist in this step. -
Design
of
Interface
and
Device
Based on the gathered user needs and requirements, a suitable PDD will be chosen. An interface will be designed for this PDD so the users can easily access individual data during collaborative group tasks and transition between personal and shared displays. -
Testing
and
Recommendations
Firstly, a low fidelity prototype (LFP) for the PDD interface will be developed. This will be tested with users and their feedback will be analyzed. These users do not have to be from the naval command center. They can be individuals on campus who have worked in collaborative settings. The PDD interface will then be modified based on the recommendations and results of the user testing to create a medium fidelity prototype (MFP). Also, a LFP of the interface between the PDD and the tabletop display will also be developed and tested with users. The results of the user testing of the medium fidelity prototype of the PDD interface and the LFP of the tabletop interface will be used to come up with future recommendations and improvements.