CAREER: An Interaction Framework that Enables and Facilitates Productive Problem Solving in Multi-User, Multi-Display Environments

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

To produce high quality solutions during complex problem solving, groups must be able to realize effective problem solving processes including the ability to quickly create, share, and exchange task artifacts, the ability to maintain awareness of each other's activity, and the ability to transition between performing individual work in parallel and joint work in a shared space. Yet despite many years of research, groups are still unable to realize effective processes when using digital artifacts and their supporting devices. This can severely inhibit a group's ability to produce quality solutions. Though not new, this problem is becoming extremely urgent as more users are collaborating with digital artifacts to solve increasingly complex problems in critical domains such as software, design, and security. In this project, the PI will investigate one promising approach for facilitating group problem solving: multi-user, multi-display environments (MDEs). An MDE networks personal and shared devices to form a single virtual workspace. Personal devices such as laptops provide physically separate spaces for performing individual work in parallel, while large displays provide a shared visual space for joint work. But these spaces must be integrated through enabling systems and supporting interactions. While many enabling systems exist, designing interfaces, interactions, and visualizations (collectively comprising the interaction framework), which combine to facilitate effective group problem solving in an MDE, remains a grand challenge. In this project, building upon the current state-of-the-art in our theoretical understanding of group work and his extensive multidisciplinary research experience, the PI will develop an MDE interaction framework consisting of three core components: a management interface, overview visualization, and input redirection. The management interface will enable a user to relocate applications among displays in the MDE while minimizing disruption to other ongoing work, yet also preventing when desired others from relocating or interacting with given applications on a shared display. The overview visualization will enable users to maintain awareness of each other's ongoing work relative to the central activity. Input redirection to any shared display will allow users to jointly interact with applications on those displays. The PI will study how these core components interrelate and affect in combination the ability of an MDE to support effective group problem solving. A successful outcome will facilitate effective group problem solving by allowing users to create, share, and exchange task artifacts, to maintain awareness of each other's activity, and to seamlessly transition between individual and joint work. Broader Impact: The PI will disseminate the software developed as part of the research, to enable end users to utilize MDEs for their own problem solving activities and researchers to further investigate techniques for facilitating effective group work in MDEs. The empirical results and lessons learned from the project will advance scientific understanding of how to develop interaction frameworks for MDEs that allow groups to better realize effective problem solving processes. By enabling more effective processes, the longer-term impact of the work is that groups will be able to create higher quality solutions for complex problems more of the time. The various research activities will be tightly integrated by the PI into his courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level.