Browsing by Author "Roseman, Mark"
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Item Open Access BUILDING FLEXIBLE GROUPWARE THROUGH OPEN PROTOCOLS(1993-04-01) Roseman, Mark; Greenberg, SaulThis paper presents a technical approach to building flexible groupware applications. Flexibility provides the promise of personalizable groupware, allowing different groups to work with the system in diverse ways which best suit the group's own needs. An implementation technique called open protocols is described, which is a variation of client/server architectures. Open protocols facilitate the addition of group-specific modules long after the system has been created. Three examples illustrating the use of open protocols are presented: floor control, conference registration, and brainstorming. Finally, a number of issues facing the groupware developer using open protocols are addressed, along with strategies that can help in dealing with these issues.Item Open Access BUILDING REAL TIME GROUPWARE WITH GROUPKIT, A GROUPWARE TOOLKIT(1995-04-01) Roseman, Mark; Greenberg, SaulThis paper presents an overview of GroupKit, a groupware toolkit that lets developers build real-time desktop conferencing applications. GroupKit was constructed from our belief that programming groupware should be only slightly harder than building functionally similar single-user systems. We have been able to significantly reduce the implementation complexity of groupware through the key features that comprise GroupKit. A \fIruntime infrastructure\fR automatically manages the creation, interconnection, and communications of the distributed processes that comprise conference sessions. A set of \fIgroupware programming abstractions\fR allows developers to control the behaviour of distributed processes, to take action on state changes, and to share relevant data. \fIGroupware widgets\fR lets interface features of value to conference participants to be easily added to groupware applications. \fISession managers\fR-interfaces that let people create and manage their meetings-are decoupled from groupware applications and are built by developers to accommodate the group's working style. Example GroupKit applications in a variety of domains have been implemented with only modest effort.Item Open Access Item Open Access DESIGN OF A REAL-TIME GROUPWARE TOOLKIT(1993-03-01) Roseman, MarkReal-time groupware systems, where several users work simultaneously with the same information, are notoriously difficult to construct. This thesis describes the design and implementation of a toolkit for building real-time groupware. Following a user-centered methodology, a number of requirements for groupware toolkits are presented. The requirements are both human-centered, such as support for work surface activities, flexible group processes, and integration with conventional work, and also programmer-centered, such as communications and a shared graphics model. Based on these requirements, a prototype toolkit called GROUPKIT is described. It contains three sets of components used to meet the requirements: a communications infrastructure; overlays for work surface activities; and open protocols for flexible group processes. Other concerns in the toolkit design are minimizing the developer's work; encouraging use; extensibility; and flexibility. A number of sample applications built with GROUPKIT are described.Item Open Access Design of a real-time groupware toolkit(1993) Roseman, Mark; Greenberg, SaulItem Open Access Item Open Access GROUPKIT: A GROUPWARE TOOLKIT FOR BUILDING REAL-TIME CONFERENCING APPLICATIONS(1992-03-01) Greenberg, Saul; Roseman, Mark(Submitted to the 1992 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW'92), Toronto). This paper presents our approach to the design of groupware toolkits for real-time work, and how the design is instantiated in our toolkit, \s+1G\s-1ROUP\s+1K\s-1IT. The design is based on both the technical underpinnings necessary for real-time groupware, and on user-centered features identified by existing CSCW human factors work. We also present three strategies for building \s+1G\s-1ROUP\s+1K\s-1IT's components. First, an extendible, object-oriented run-time architecture supports managing distributed processes and the communication between them. Second, transparent \fIoverlays\fR offer a convenient method for adding general components to various groupware applications, for example supporting gestures via multiple cursors and annotation via sketching. Third, \fIopen protocols\fR allow the groupware designer to create a wide range of policies, accommodating group differences in areas such as conference registration and floor control.Item Open Access ISSUES AND EXPERIENCES DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING TWO GROUP DRAWING TOOLS(1991-07-01) Greenberg, Saul; Roseman, Mark; Bohnet, Ralph; Webster, DaveGroupware designers are now developing multi-user equivalents of popular paint and draw applications. Their job is not an easy one. First, human factors issues peculiar to group interaction appear that, if ignored, seriously limit the usability of the group tool. Second, implementation is fraught with considerable hurdles. In particular, contemporary window systems and their user interface toolkits actually inhibit implementation efforts by failing to provide adequate building blocks for constructing group interface primitives and by not supplying an adequate architectural infrastructure. This paper describes the issues and experiences we have met and handled in the design of two systems supporting remote real time group interaction: \fIGroupSketch\fR, a multi-user sketchpad; and \fIGroupDraw\fR, an object-based multi-user draw package. On the human factors side, we summarize empirically- derived design principles that we believe are critical to building useful and usable collaborative drawing tools. On the implementation side, we describe our experiences with replicated versus centralized architectures, schemes for participant registration, multiple cursors, network requirements, and the structure of the drawing primitives.Item Open Access MANAGING COMPLEXITY IN TEAMROOMS, A TEL-BASED INTERNET GROUPWARE APPLICATION(1996-03-01) Roseman, MarkThis paper describes TeamRooms, a Tel-based real time groupware application that provides "network places" for users to collaborate. TeamRooms is significantly more complex than previous groupware applications, providing not only generic tools such as shared whiteboards, but also custom groupware applets running within an OpenDoc-style embedded window. As well as describing TeamRooms itself, the paper relates the use of several Tel programming techniques - meta-architectures, multiple interpreters, and embedded windows - that are used to manage the resulting complexity of the system.Item Open Access REGISTRATION FOR REAL-TIME GROUPWARE(1994-02-01) Greenberg, Saul; Roseman, MarkThis paper examines the groupware registration problems, both s ocial and technical, that occur as users select their tools and the others who will share them. We argue that users require far better and more flexible registration than is provided in today's systems. From our examination of users' needs we derive a set of requirements for groupware registration tools. We present a general registration architecture for creating different registration scenarios, and illustrate a number of the scenarios that we have created.Item Open Access USER-CENTERED DESIGN OF INTERFACE TOOLKITS(1993-01-01) Roseman, Mark; Greenberg, SaulCurrent user interface toolkits unnecessarily complicate the process of creating user interfaces. This paper suggests that the design of these toolkits must be rethought. We advocate a user-centered approach to the design of these development tools, considering the application developer as user and applying principles from interface design to design of interface toolkits. The process of user-centered toolkit design is described, making use of design affordances to influence the developer's use of the toolkit. User-centered design is shown as a useful framework for understanding a number of toolkit issues and their solutions.Item Open Access USING A ROOM METAPHOR TO EASE TRANSITIONS IN GROUPWARE(1998-01-01) Greenberg, Saul; Roseman, MarkMany groupware systems contain gaps that hinder or block natural social interaction or that do not let people easily move between different styles of work. We believe that the adoption of a room metaphor can ease people's transitions across these gaps, allowing them to work together more naturally. Using the TeamWave Workplace system as an example, we show how particular gaps are removed. First, we ease a person's transition between single user and groupware applications by making rooms suitable for both individual and group activity. Second, people can move fluidly between asynchronous and synchronous work because room artifacts persist. People can leave messages, documents and annotations for others, or work on them together when occupying the room at the same time. Third, we ease the difficulty of initiating real time work by providing people with awareness of others who may be available for real-time interactions, and by automatically establishing connections as users enter a common room. Fourth, we discuss how a technical space can be transformed into a social place by describing how a group crafts meaning into a room.Item Open Access WHEN IS AN OBJECT NOT AN OBJECT(1995-03-01) Roseman, MarkThis paper describes an approach to designing and building new objects that can be flexibly and dynamically changed using either Tcl or C. This extension approach seeks to avoid the "chasm" found in migrating code from Tcl to C as it matures by freely mixing Tcl and C to create an object's subcommands. The approach differs from traditional Tcl object frameworks in that it retains familiar mechanisms used to create new toplevel Tcl commands. A secondary goal is to illustrate how object designers can encourage rich extension, by exposing object internals to change. To illustrate the technique, a simple data structure is extended to support sharing between multiple Tcl processes.