Enhancing Collaboration Through Role Specific Information Sharing

Abstract

Information sharing, either directly or trough summaries and proxies, is one of the pillars of collaborative systems in human-computer interaction. Representing and sharing role-specific information in collocated systems is one of the many challenges in groupware systems. In my thesis, I explore methods and their impacts on sharing role-based information in applications where users do not have uniform access to information either because they are using different technologies to access data or because there is no support for the flow of information. I present tools spanning both "What You See Is What I See" and "What You See Is Not What I See" approaches displaying either raw or summarized information to users. I present three studies leading towards an approach to support road cyclists to perform better as a unit by sharing their exertion information among all group members while leveraging technology ubiquitous to them. I start my work with a study exploring how to enable shared augmented reality experiences in museums when only one of the group members has access to an augmented reality headset. Either because there are not enough devices available or someone might feel uncomfortable using one in public. I propose two approaches for AR experiences (Over-the-Shoulder AR and Semantic Linking), a complementary technique (Indicator Rings), evaluate them in a long-term in-the-wild study, and discuss their impacts on museum scenarios and other applications. Later I present a design research study exploring the work done by road cyclists while training together, following a Contextual Design methodology. I expose their strategies and challenges with group coordination and communication and uncover a lack of support for sharing individual metrics such as effort in standard tools. Finally, I present my last study comparing the impacts on performance and self-reported metrics of two methods for road cyclists to share their exertion levels with group members while exercising: Paceguide and RPE View. I then discuss the broader implications of my work for the HCI community while proposing future research venues in Sport-HCI and other co-located work domains.