Exploring how workspace awareness cues affect distributed meeting outcome

Yu, F., Zhang, P., Ding, X. , Lu, T. and Gu, N. (2023) Exploring how workspace awareness cues affect distributed meeting outcome. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 39(8), pp. 1606-1625. (doi: 10.1080/10447318.2022.2064063)

Abstract

Nowadays, using the online whiteboard to share knowledge in distributed meetings has become a common practice. Existing studies and practices have attempted to visualize attendees’ interactive activities in whiteboard tools to support the virtual team’s workspace awareness (WA). However, the impact of such visual cues on meeting success remains unclear. For this purpose, we primarily explore whether and to what extent WA cues are conducive to meeting outcome. This study applies activity theory to guide our prototype design and research analysis. A customized web-based whiteboard interface is implemented under two conditions. We conduct a study with 42 subjects in a distributed meeting scenario via a controlled experiment. Also, we analyze the system affordance via user experience. The results demonstrate that the benefits of WA cues to meeting outcome are especially embodied in goal attainment and quality of contributions, but not effectively supported in productivity and user satisfaction. Moreover, subjects report that they do not feel distracted by the system’s visual cues because they do not notice those cues most of the time and use them only when needed. Drawing upon findings from our trial work, we provide several implications for designing a collaborative knowledge-sharing environment to assist the visual support of WA in distributed meetings.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant No. 61932007.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Ding, Dr Sharon
• Authors: Yu, F., Zhang, P., Ding, X., Lu, T., and Gu, N.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Journal Name: International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 1044-7318
• ISSN (Online): 1532-7590
• Published Online: 24 April 2022
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
• First Published: First published in International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 39(8):1606-1625
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy