Casual Collaboration

As computers are increasingly used to mediate social interaction, tools are needed not only to support direct communication, but also to create a richer social environment for the networked group. These include tools that provide information about the presence of others and that give the user a sense of the ongoing activities. This paper describes two ongoing research projects in this area. Collaboration-at-a-Glance is a visual interface to an electronic group. It creates an animated image of a remote meeting by compositing pictures of the participants so as to represent their actions. Visual Who is a window onto a larger community. Like a window onto a street, it shows the comings and goings of the community members. 1: Visualizing electronic presence William Whyte, describing what makes for a successful urban environment, said: "What attracts people most, in sum, is other people. If I labor the point, it is because many urban spaces are designed as though the opposite were true...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1994
• Where: ICMCS
• Authors: Judith S. Donath
• Keywords: ICMCS 1994, Multimedia, Presence William Whyte, Richer Social Environment, Urban Environment