Tang, CharlotteGreenberg, Saul2008-02-272008-02-272002-02-12http://hdl.handle.net/1880/45869Casual interaction is recognized as the backbone of everyday collaboration, where a wealth of valuable information is exchanged by people in brief and impromptu but context-rich meetings. Within CSCW, many researchers strive to support casual interaction between distance-separated collaborators through specially designed groupware systems. Early versions of these systems, such as media spaces and instant messaging systems, presented only one or two media channels for supporting interpersonal awareness and resulting interactions. However, more recent systems offer many media channels in an effort to emulate the rich contextual information visible in the everyday world. One such system built in our laboratory is the Notification Collage, which lets people post various media elements to a publicly viewable electronic work surface. Media elements include text notes, images, slide shows, web pages, video snapshots, one's computer screen, and so on. The idea is that these rich information sources provide the group with awareness not only of each other's interpersonal state, but of interesting artifacts; the consequence of this awareness will be many casual interactions.EngComputer Scienceunknown2002-699-0210.11575/PRISM/30809