Effects of Sensemaking Translucence on Distributed Collaborative Analysis

Collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information and insights with each other, but this process of sharing runs the risks of prematurely focusing the investigation on specific suspects. To address this tension, we propose and test an interface for collaborative crime analysis that aims to make analysts more aware of their sensemaking processes. We compare our sensemaking translucence interface to a standard interface without special sensemaking features in a controlled laboratory study. We found that the sensemaking translucence interface significantly improved clue finding and crime solving performance, but that analysts rated the interface lower on subjective measures than the standard interface. We conclude that designing for distributed sensemaking requires balancing task performance vs. user experience and real-time information sharing vs. data accuracy.Comment: ACM SIGCHI CSCW 201

Investigating Practices When Using an Overview Device in Collaborative Multi-Surface Trip-Planning

The availability of mobile device ecologies enables new types of ad-hoc co-located decision-making and sensemak-ing practices in which people find, collect, discuss, and share information. However, little is known about what kind of device configurations are suitable for these types of tasks. This paper contributes new insights into how people use configurations of devices for one representative example task: collaborative co-located trip-planning. We present an empirical study that explores and compares three strategies to use multiple devices: no-overview, overview on own device, and a separate overview device. The results show that the overview facilitated decision- and sensemaking during a collaborative trip-planning task by aiding groups to iterate their itinerary, organize locations and timings efficiently, and discover new insights. Groups shared and discussed more opinions, resulting in more democratic decision-making. Groups provided with a separate overview device engaged more frequently and spent more time in closely-coupled collaboration

Examining ICT-Mediated Cultural Factors for Subgroup Impact on Virtual Team Dynamics

As virtual teams are inherently heterogeneous and distributed in nature they have a greater tendency to fracture intosubgroups. Proper management of these subgroups is critical as they are often more detrimental than beneficial. Research thatsystematically examines subgroup formation is limited in identifying factors that influence the negative or positive impact ofsubgroups. To address this gap, we propose a new model based on Social Categorization Theory, Faultline Theory and thediversity literature. Our model takes into account the temporal impact of different cultural factors, namely surface and deeplevel culture diversity, with the alignment of other attributes on subgroup saliency. It also captures the interaction of varyinglevels of culture (national, organizational, functional) and their impact on subgroup dynamics. Additionally, the modelrepresents the norms of technology use as a mediator for the impact of subgroup saliency on team performance

Collective sensemaking in virtual teams

Virtual teams (VT) have been studied since two decades because of their increasing presence in today’s organizations. To better understand how VTs work, our research tries to address this issue by analysing interpretive frameworks through which students made sense of a VT experience as part of a course taught simultaneously in two distant universities. Using the concepts of sensemaking (Weick, 1995) and sensegiving (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991), I ask: how does individual sensemaking contribute to constructing collective sensemaking? I used a narrative approach to study reflective narrations produced by the students and logs they posted on their team’s forum. The findings show how competitive frameworks hinder collective sensemaking; the importance of sensegiving on the development of VTs; and how perceptions of CMC limitations depend on interpretive frameworks

The TA Framework: Designing Real-time Teaching Augmentation for K-12 Classrooms

Recently, the HCI community has seen increased interest in the design of teaching augmentation (TA): tools that extend and complement teachers' pedagogical abilities during ongoing classroom activities. Examples of TA systems are emerging across multiple disciplines, taking various forms: e.g., ambient displays, wearables, or learning analytics dashboards. However, these diverse examples have not been analyzed together to derive more fundamental insights into the design of teaching augmentation. Addressing this opportunity, we broadly synthesize existing cases to propose the TA framework. Our framework specifies a rich design space in five dimensions, to support the design and analysis of teaching augmentation. We contextualize the framework using existing designs cases, to surface underlying design trade-offs: for example, balancing actionability of presented information with teachers' needs for professional autonomy, or balancing unobtrusiveness with informativeness in the design of TA systems. Applying the TA framework, we identify opportunities for future research and design.Comment: to be published in Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 17 pages, 10 figure

A debate dashboard to enhance on-line knowledge sharing

Purpose – Web 2.0 technologies have radically modified the way in which knowledge is created, managed and shared, improving productivity and accelerating innovation processes for the enterprises. These technologies have allowed enterprises to produce knowledge, leverage collective intelligence and build social capital on a scale that was unimaginable a few years ago. In this paper we focus on a particular kind of web-based collaborative platforms known as argument mapping tools and we discuss the main barriers to the adoption of them. Literature has proved that these argument mapping tools provide large and small and medium enterprise with several advantages, but nevertheless, they have low level adoption. In this paper we explore new technological solutions to support the adoption of argument mapping tools. In particular, we propose the design of a Debate Dashboard to provide visual feedback to support online deliberation. These visual feedback aims at compensating the loss of information due to the mediation of the technology. The Debate Dashboard is composed of a set of suitable visualization tools that have been selected on the basis of a literature review of the visualization tools. Design/methodology/approach - We propose a literature review of existing visualization tools. Building on the literature review we selected thirty visualization tools, which have been classified on the basis of the kind of feedback they are able to provide. We identify three classes of feedback: Community feedback (identikit of users), Interaction feedback (about how users interact) and Absorption feedback (about generated content and its organization). We distilled the Debate Dashboard features by building on results of a literature review on Web 2.0 tools for data visualization. As output of literature review we selected six visualization tools. We consider these selected tools as a sort of starting point. Indeed, our aim is the improvement of them through the addition of further features and functions in order to make them more effective in providing feedback. Originality/value – Our paper enriches the debate about computer mediated conversation and visualization tools. We propose a Dashboard prototype to augment collaborative knowledge mapping tools by providing visual feedback on conversations. The Dashboard will provide at the same time three different kinds of feedback about: details of the participants to the conversation, interaction processes and generated content. This will allow the improvement of the benefits and reduce the costs deriving from the use of mapping tools. Moreover, another important novelty is that visualization tools will be integrated to mapping tools, as until now they have been used only to visualize data contained in forums (as Usenet or Slash.dot), chat or email archives Practical implications – The Dashboard provides feedback about participants, interaction processes and generated contents, thus supporting the adoption of mapping tools as technologies able to foster knowledge sharing among remote workers or/and customers and supplier. The integration of Debate Dashboard with common online argument mapping tools aims at enabling the following advantages: 1. Reduction of misunderstanding; 2. Reduction of cognitive effort required to use argument mapping tools; 3. Improvement of the exploration and the analysis of the maps - the Debate Dashboard feedback improves the usability of the object (the map), thus allowing users to pitch into the conversation in the right place

Investigating the Role of an Overview Device in Multi-Device Collaboration

The availability of mobile device ecologies enables new types of ad-hoc co-located decision-making and sensemaking practices in which people find, collect, discuss, and share information. However, little is known about what kind of device configurations are suitable for these types of tasks. This paper contributes new insights into how people use configurations of devices for one representative example task: collaborative co-located trip-planning. We present an empirical study that explores and compares three strategies to use multiple devices: no-overview, overview on own device, and a separate overview device. The results show that the overview facilitated decision- and sensemaking during a collaborative trip-planning task by aiding groups to iterate their itinerary, organize locations and timings efficiently, and discover new insights. Groups shared and discussed more opinions, resulting in more democratic decision-making. Groups provided with a separate overview device engaged more frequently and spent more time in closely-coupled collaboration

Large displays and tablets:Data exploration and its effects on data collection

Data is pivotal to open government initiatives, where citizens are often expected to be informed and actively participate. Yet, it can be difficult for people to understand the meaning of data. Presenting data to the public in an appropriate way may also increase citizen's willingness to participate in data collection. Here we present a study which explores how large screens can support socially relevant data exploration. In a between subject laboratory experiment, we analysed how pairs of participants explored data visualisations on a high-resolution display (LHRD) and a tablet. Our results indicate that LHRDs are less cognitively demanding, while tablets offer more shared control of the interface. Data exploration had limited effect on increasing comfort with sharing personal data but helped increase perceptions of trustworthiness within the data collection process. We observed that appropriately visualised data on either platform has significant potential to increase the public's understanding of large data sets

The Influence of Visual Provenance Representations on Strategies in a Collaborative Hand-off Data Analysis Scenario

Conducting data analysis tasks rarely occur in isolation. Especially in intelligence analysis scenarios where different experts contribute knowledge to a shared understanding, members must communicate how insights develop to establish common ground among collaborators. The use of provenance to communicate analytic sensemaking carries promise by describing the interactions and summarizing the steps taken to reach insights. Yet, no universal guidelines exist for communicating provenance in different settings. Our work focuses on the presentation of provenance information and the resulting conclusions reached and strategies used by new analysts. In an open-ended, 30-minute, textual exploration scenario, we qualitatively compare how adding different types of provenance information (specifically data coverage and interaction history) affects analysts' confidence in conclusions developed, propensity to repeat work, filtering of data, identification of relevant information, and typical investigation strategies. We see that data coverage (i.e., what was interacted with) provides provenance information without limiting individual investigation freedom. On the other hand, while interaction history (i.e., when something was interacted with) does not significantly encourage more mimicry, it does take more time to comfortably understand, as represented by less confident conclusions and less relevant information-gathering behaviors. Our results contribute empirical data towards understanding how provenance summarizations can influence analysis behaviors.Comment: to be published in IEEE Vis 202