Leveraging digital backchannels to enhance user experience in electronically mediated communication

Rendezvous is a conference call solution that leverages Voice over IP, enterprise calendaring, instant messaging, and rich client functionality to enhance the user experience and effectiveness of distributed meetings. We describe the service, and two of its user experience innovations – the conference call proxy and iHelp – which function as digital backchannels. We present results from a preliminary user evaluation, and discuss our notion of digital backchannels with respect to the social translucence framework. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.2 [Software Engineering]: Design Tools and Techniques – evolutionary prototyping, user interfaces H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Group and Organization Interfaces – collaborative computing, computer-supported cooperative work. General Terms Design, Human Factors Keywords Social computing, social visualization, social translucence, VoIP, conference calls, audio conferencing, CSCW, collaboration, instant messaging...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: CSCW
• Authors: Wendy A. Kellogg, Thomas Erickson, Tracee Vetting Wolf, Stephen Levy, Jim Christensen, Jeremy B. Sussman, William E. Bennett
• Keywords: CSCW 2006, Instant Messaging, Social Sciences, Social Translucence, User Experience