More Than Screen Deep Communication and Collaboration
MOTIVATION: WHY COLLABORATION AND
COMMUNICATION? For an individual using a computer system, as Candace Sidner says in her paper in this volume, "interfaces are 'communication engines' to the functionality of software applications; interfaces are how we get our work done." Yet the word "interfaces" suggests a thin veneer (according to the dictionary, "a surface forming a common boundary"), too thin to provide the capabilities for communication and support that people should be getting from computer systems. Most members of the human-computer interface community take the "I" to refer instead to "interaction," but the ability to collaborate ("work with") and not just interact ("act on one another") is becoming increasingly important as people use the NII not just to get individual tasks done, but also to communicate and work with others. As explained in Chapter 2 , the NII's growth is extending civic life and community to include geographically dispersed individuals. It is thus important to expand the conventional conceptualization of interfaces by recognizing that they may involve more than one person and machine and that collaborative systems can either alleviate or exacerbate problems in interactions among individuals with different abilities. As explained by Terry Winograd in his position paper in this volume, the traditional idea of "interface" implies a focus on the person and the machine. In designing interfaces it is important to focus as well on the "interspace" that is inhabited by multiple people and machines in a complex web of interactions. The expanded view this interspace implies adds to—but does not replace—the conventional requirements of interfaces for facilitating communication between person and machine. | |
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