CoolBeans: Using Technology to Encourage Real-World Informal Interaction

Informal interaction is considered an important part of the work ethic and process in business and academia. We found that the new facilities for a computer science department at the University of Southampton were not conducive to this, and designed a technology-based solution to improve social awareness and encourage interaction using a presence-aware application and web interface. Users could use the system to find out who was taking a break and to invite others to do so. Initial results suggest that the project both encouraged social activity and became a popular fixture in the area on which efforts were focused