Understanding How to Design Awareness Groupware for the Home
Date
2005-05-09
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Abstract
People naturally maintain an awareness of the location, activities,
and emotions of their family and friends. We call this interpersonal
awareness: a naturally gained understanding of the social relations of one s
social contacts. This awareness is vital in home life for it provides family
and friends with: an understanding of how to best move into interaction with
one another, knowledge needed to coordinate and plan activities, and feelings
of connectedness and comfort. We build on this existing model of
interpersonal awareness to articulate a set of design guidelines that describe
how groupware should be designed to support interpersonal awareness in the
home. Specifically, we show how awareness groupware should be designed as
simple and reliable awareness appliances that can provide meaning and
interaction by being embodied in everyday domestic routines. We also discuss
how designs should support contextual locations within the home while
ensuring users maintain adequate control and feedback over awareness
information.
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Computer Science