More Group Observations

Two meetings held by 1 group. One on 11/7, one on 11/8

MEETING #1:

Number of participants: 4 (1 via webcam)
Number of laptops: 5 (1 extra just to display webcam person)
Duration: 2 hours

Group Task:

Writing a group paper

Situation:

Small rectangular table. JC is at head of table, ST and AY are on opposite sides. A laptop with JH (who is on webcam) is at the other head of table.

Observations:

Group used GoogleDocs, for its multi-user/instant edit capabilities.

Since GoogleDocs shows a little flag for every user that's editing the page (live, at the exact spot), the members often used GoogleDocs itself to communicate with each other. Such as typing "LOOK RIGHT HERE." - to show another member which part of the paper they were referring to in their verbal discussion.

The members physically present mostly just discussed verbally, and wrote on the GoogleDoc. This part of the paper didn't require much data exchange/info-sharing. However, occasionally, when talking to JH via webcam, AY actually turned her laptop around in attempt to show JH something. It is an automatic instinct, so even though AY realizes the pointlessness (text is obviously too small for JH to see through webcam) as soon as she starts turning her laptop around, she does it on more than one occasion (about to start turning laptop, then stops)

Group kept praising the awesome-ness of GoogleDocs, and commented they couldn't imagine how they used to write group papers w/o it.

MEETING #2:

Number of participants: 4
Number of laptops: 4
Duration: 3 hours

Group Tasks:

• Come up with design ideas for an interface redesign
• Finish writing group paper

Situation:

Rectangular table with round half circles at ends. JC and ST are on one side of table. AY is perpendicular to them, at the head of the table. JH is on opposite side of JC and ST.

<-- gist of positions

Observations:

While discussing design ideas, JC finds an existing cool design online and says "Oh, this is a neat idea. Blahblahblah..." ST (on same side as JC) leans over: "Whoa!" AY (on the perpendicular side) is close enough, so leans over as well. She has to go out of her way more so than ST. JH looks over her laptop but doesn't move, since it would take too much effort to get up & walk around the table. JC turns her laptop 180 degrees to face JH, so she can see too. The table isn't too wide, but there is still some distance, so JH can see the gist of the design, but not much else.

AY thinks the design is cool, and flicks her eyes up to the URL bar to see the source of the article. The URL is long, so she just takes note of the main domain name, goes back to her own laptop, and googles the domain name + interface keyword. The same article is one of the top results, AY clicks on the link, and reads up more on the design.

JH - "What would be cool, is if the back of the laptop is transparent. Or I can somehow see what she's seeing directly."

AY - "It's annoying how we have to keep leaning over to look at what’s on each other’s screen."

AY uses DropBox sometimes, but for this, it's too much effort for such fleeting information. 1) None of the other members use DropBox, so they would have to download the program or go to the site, 2) Even if all the users had DropBox, you can't drop a link in. Would have to take screenshot of page & then drop in. Too much of a hassle.

Since they were all on GoogleDocs, they could've also simply copied & pasted any links to the doc, and instantly allow the others to copy & paste it to their own URL bars, but none of them did this once throughout the meeting. They used it to communicate about the paper, but not for outside info.

The group split up 2 and 2 to work on different sections of the paper. ST and JC naturally paired up as they were closest/on same side. AY scooted closer to JH. AY would look over at JH's screen, even though both working on same doc/section in GoogleDocs! This was b/c occasionally JH would point to certain parts of the paper with her finger.

JC mentions an interesting article she saw last night. JH says she saw the same article, or at least she thinks it's the same article. JC pulls up the article, AY goes over to look, crouches down to read article on JC's screen. Then goes back and glances at JH's screen to see if they were talking about the same article. They were.