Introducing instant messaging and chat in the workplace

We report on our experiences of introducing an instant messaging and group chat application into geographically distributed workgroups. We describe a number of issues we encountered, including privacy concerns, individual versus group training, and focusing on teams or individuals. The perception of the tool's utility was a complex issue, depending both on users' views of the importance of informal communication, and their perceptions of the nature of cross-site communication issues. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of critical mass, which is related to the features each user actually uses. More generally, we encountered a dilemma that imposes serious challenges for user-centered design of groupware systems. Keywords Instant Messaging, Presence Awareness, Groupware, Technology Diffusion, Chat, Distributed Teams

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: CHI
• Authors: James D. Herbsleb, David L. Atkins, David G. Boyer, Mark Handel, Thomas A. Finholt
• Keywords: CHI 2002, Cross-site Communication Issues, Human Computer Interaction, Individual Versus Group, Keywords Instant Messaging