Academia.eduAcademia.edu

Outline

Title
Abstract
Introduction and Background
Method
Results
Implications for Design
Limitations
Conclusions
References
All Topics
Computer Science

The promise and peril of parallel chat in video meetings for work

Profile image of Abigail SellenAbigail Sellen

Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451793
visibility

…

description

8 pages

link

1 file

Abstract

We report the opportunities and challenges of parallel chat in workrelated video meetings, drawing on a study of Microsoft employees' remote meeting experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that parallel chat allows groups to communicate flexibly without interrupting the main conversation, coordinate action around shared resources, and also improves inclusivity. On the other hand, parallel chat can also be distracting, overwhelming, and cause information asymmetries. Further, we find that whether an individual views parallel chat as a net positive in meetings is subject to the complex interactions between meeting type, personal habits, and intentional group practices. We suggest opportunities for tools and practices to capitalise on the strengths of parallel chat and mitigate its weaknesses.

Related papers

"So what shall we talk about": Openings and closings in chat-based virtual meetings.
Kris Markman
View PDFchevron_right
Video meeting signals: Experimental evidence for a technique to improve the experience of video conferencing
Paul Hills

We found evidence from two experiments that a simple set of gestural techniques can improve the experience of online meetings. Video conferencing technology has practical benefits, but psychological costs. It has allowed industry, education and social interactions to continue in some form during the covid-19 lockdowns. But it has left many users feeling fatigued and socially isolated, perhaps because the limitations of video conferencing disrupt users' ability to coordinate interactions and foster social affiliation. Video Meeting Signals (VMS™) is a simple technique that uses gestures to overcome some of these limitations. First, we carried out a randomised controlled trial with over 100 students, in which half underwent a short training session in VMS. All participants rated their subjective experience of two weekly seminars, and transcripts were objectively coded for the valence of language used. Compared to controls, students with VMS training rated their personal experience, their feelings toward their seminar group, and their perceived learning outcomes as significantly higher. Also, they were more likely to use positive language and less likely to use negative language. A second, larger experiment replicated the first, and added a condition where groups were given a version of the VMS training but taught to use emoji response buttons rather than gestures to signal the same information. The emoji-trained groups did not experience the same improvement as the VMS groups. By exploiting the specific benefits of gestural communication, VMS has great potential to overcome the psychological problems of group video meetings.

View PDFchevron_right
Studying video-based collaboration in context: From small work groups to large organizations
John Tang

1997

Over the past few years, our group has developed and studied a variety of video-based prototypes to support remote collaboration. We started with a basic desktop video conferencing system with a shared whiteboard and found that it was effective in supporting a distributed group's conversations, but that many of their attempts to contact each other were unsuccessful.

View PDFchevron_right
What is chat doing in the workplace?
Jim Herbsleb

2002

Abstract We report an empirical study of a synchronous messaging application with group-oriented functionality designed to support teams in the workplace. In particular, the tool supports group chat windows that allow members of a group to communicate with text that persists for about a day. We describe the experience of 6 globally-distributed work groups who used the tool over a period of 17 months.

View PDFchevron_right
The character, functions, and styles of instant messaging in the workplace
Alan Walendowski, Diane J Schiano

Proceedings of the …, 2002

Current perceptions of Instant Messaging (IM) use are based primarily on self-report studies. We logged thousands of (mostly) workplace IM conversations and evaluated their conversational characteristics and functions. Contrary to prior research, we found that the primary use of workplace IM was for complex work discussions. Only 28% of conversations were simple, single-purpose interactions and only 31% were about scheduling or coordination. Moreover, people rarely switched from IM to another medium when the conversation got complex. We found evidence of two distinct styles of use. Heavy IM users and frequent IM partners mainly used it to work together: to discuss a broad range of topics via many fastpaced interactions per day, each with many short turns and much threading and multitasking. Light users and infrequent pairs mainly used IM to coordinate: for scheduling, via fewer conversations per day that were shorter, slower-paced with less threading and multitasking.

View PDFchevron_right
MeetCues: Supporting Online Meetings Experience
Sagar Joglekar

2020 IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS), 2020

The remote work ecosystem is transforming patterns of communication between teams and individuals located at distance. Particularly, the absence of certain subtle cues in current communication tools may hinder an online's meeting outcome by negatively impacting attendees' overall experience and, often, make them feeling disconnected. The problem here might be due to the fact that current tools fall short in capturing it. To partly address this, we developed an online platform-MeetCues-with the aim of supporting online communication during meetings. MeetCues is a companion platform for a commercial communication tool with interactive and visual UI features that support back-channels of communications. It allows attendees to be more engaged during a meeting, and reflect in real-time or post-meeting. We evaluated our platform in a diverse set of five, real-world corporate meetings, and we found that, not only people were more engaged and aware during their meetings, but they also felt more connected. These findings suggest promise in the design of new communications tools, and reinforce the role of InfoVis in augmenting and enriching online meetings.

View PDFchevron_right
Meetings in a distributed group of experts: Comparing face-to-face, chat and collaborative virtual environments
Ann Lantz

Behaviour & Information Technology, 2001

Focus for this report is the Collaborative Virtual Environments potential to support work meetings for geographically distributed experts. Research question concerns the difference in face-to-face-, chat-, and CVE-meetings on efficiency, communication, technology, enjoyment and, competence development. A small group of experts were observed during their natural work meetings. Six of the groups scheduled meetings were held three times in a chat environment and three times in a CVE. Results point at that chat and CVE meetings are more task oriented than face-to-face meetings, that avatars support turn taking and are enjoyable.

View PDFchevron_right
Large Scale Analysis of Multitasking Behavior During Remote Meetings
Shamsi Iqbal

Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2021

Virtual meetings are critical for remote work because of the need for synchronous collaboration in the absence of in-person interactions. In-meeting multitasking is closely linked to people's productivity and wellbeing. However, we currently have limited understanding of multitasking in remote meetings and its potential impact. In this paper, we present what we believe is the most comprehensive study of remote meeting multitasking behavior through an analysis of a large-scale telemetry dataset collected from February to May 2020 of U.S. Microsoft employees and a 715-person diary study. Our results demonstrate that intrinsic meeting characteristics such as size, length, time, and type, significantly correlate with the extent to which people multitask, and multitasking can lead to both positive and negative outcomes. Our findings suggest important best-practice guidelines for remote meetings (e.g., avoid important meetings in the morning) and design implications for productivity tools (e.g., support positive remote multitasking). CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing.

View PDFchevron_right
Reconstructing the Stage: The Use of Instant Messaging to Restructure Meeting Boundaries
Alan Dennis

Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06), 2006

We use Goffman's characterization of "front" and "backstage" interaction practices to analyze how the use of instant messaging in both face-to-face and technology-mediated meetings alters interaction boundaries. In an interview study of workers in two organizations, we found that workers used instant messaging during both face-to-face and technologymediated meetings (1) to participate concurrently in "front" and "backstage" interactions, (2) to participate in multiple, concurrent, "backstage" conversations, and (3) to manage and influence front stage activities through concurrent backstage conversations. These interactions would be either physically impossible or socially constrained without the use of instant messaging.

View PDFchevron_right
Meetings at Work : Advancing the Theory and Practice of Meetings
Cliff Scott

Although advances in communication technology were once expected to diminish the need for synchronous work meetings, meeting activity in organizations continues to rise. Regrettably, the time and energy employees spend in work meetings is not matched by the amount of direct attention group and organizational scholars have paid to meeting phenomena. This special issue of Small Group Research helps to address this gap by presenting empirical studies of work meetings that explore the theory and practice of work meetings.

View PDFchevron_right

References (62)

  1. AccessSIGCHI. 2020. Accessible Remote Attendance. https://accesssigchi.com/ accessible-remote-attendance/
  2. Atlassian. 2021. Work Life by Atlassian. https://www.atlassian.com/blog
  3. Emily Bary. 2021. Zoom, Microsoft Teams usage are rocketing during coron- avirus pandemic, new data show. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/zoom- microsoft-cloud-usage-are-rocketing-during-coronavirus-pandemic-new- data-show-2020-03-30 Section: Industries.
  4. Sharla Berry. 2019. The Role of Video and Text Chat in a Virtual Classroom: How Technology Impacts Community. In Educational Technology and Resources for Synchronous Learning in Higher Education, Jiyoon Yoon and Peggy Semingson (Eds.). IGI Global, Hershey, PA, USA, 173-187. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1- 5225-7567-2.ch009
  5. Ann Blandford, Dominic Furniss, and Stephann Makri. 2016. Qualitative HCI Research: Going Behind the Scenes. Synthesis Lectures on Human- Centered Informatics 9, 1 (April 2016), 1-115. https://doi.org/10.2200/ S00706ED1V01Y201602HCI034
  6. Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke. 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3, 2 (Jan. 2006), 77-101. https://doi.org/10. 1191/1478088706qp063oa
  7. Paula J Burdette, Diana L Greer, and Kari L Woods. 2013. K-12 Online Learning and Students with Disabilities: Perspectives from State Special Education Directors. Journal of asynchronous learning networks 17, 3 (2013), 65-72.
  8. Judee K. Burgoon, Joseph A. Bonito, Bjorn Bengtsson, Artemio Ramirez Jr, No- rah E. Dunbar, and Nathan Miczo. 1999. Testing the interactivity model: Commu- nication processes, partner assessments, and the quality of collaborative work. Journal of management information systems 16, 3 (1999), 33-56. ISBN: 0742-1222 Publisher: Taylor & Francis.
  9. Bill Buxton. 2009. Mediaspace -Meaningspace -Meetingspace. In Media Space 20 + Years of Mediated Life, Steve Harrison (Ed.). Springer, London, 217-231. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-483-6_13
  10. William A.S. Buxton, Abigail J. Sellen, and Michael C. Sheasby. 1997. Interfaces for Multiparty Videoconferencing. In Video-Mediated Communication, Kathleen E. Finn, Abigail J. Sellen, and Sylvia B. Wilbur (Eds.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 385-400.
  11. Hancheng Cao, Chia-Jung Lee, Shamsi Iqbal, Mary Czerwinski, Priscilla Wong, Sean Rintel, Brent Hecht, Jaime Teevan, and Longqi Yang. 2021. Large Scale Anal- ysis of Multitasking Behavior During Remote Meetings. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764. 3445243 event-place: Yokohama, Japan.
  12. Joseph N. Cappella, A. W. Siegman, and S. Feldstein. 1985. Controlling the floor in conversation. In Multichannel integrations of nonverbal behavior. Psychology Press, Hove, UK, 69-103.
  13. Xinyue Chen, Si Chen, Xu Wang, and Yun Huang. 2021. "I was afraid, but now I enjoy being a streamer!": Understanding the Challenges and Prospects of Using Live Streaming for Online Education. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 4, CSCW3 (Jan. 2021), 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1145/3432936
  14. Hanwool Choe. 2019. Eating together multimodally: Collaborative eating in mukbang , a Korean livestream of eating. Language in Society 48, 2 (April 2019), 171-208. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404518001355
  15. Norman Coombs. 2010. Making online teaching accessible: Inclusive course design for students with disabilities. Vol. 17. John Wiley & Sons.
  16. Richard L. Daft and Robert H. Lengel. 1986. Organizational information require- ments, media richness and structural design. Management science 32, 5 (1986), 554-571. ISBN: 0025-1909 Publisher: INFORMS.
  17. Carole Edelsky. 1981. Who's Got the Floor? Language in Society 10, 3 (1981), 383-421. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4167262 Publisher: Cambridge University Press.
  18. Kathleen E. Finn, Abigail J. Sellen, and Sylvia B. Wilbur (Eds.). 1997. Video- Mediated Communication. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
  19. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2020. Disability Impacts All of Us. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability- impacts-all.html
  20. Sheila M Fram. 2013. The Constant Comparative Analysis Method Outside of Grounded Theory. (2013), 25.
  21. Janan Ganesh. 2020. Zoom and the lost art of interruption. https://www.ft.com/ content/5745fc60-b0db-4958-bdf4-3bb6307e190d
  22. Sharon Gillett, Danielle Bragg, Advait Sarkar, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Parallel Meeting Chat Guide for Moderators and Participants: Drawing on findings from Microsoft Employees During COVID-19. Technical Report 2021-02-FOW-SIM3. Microsoft Research. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/ parallel-meeting-chat-guide-for-moderators-and-participants/
  23. Google. 2021. Use captions in a video call. https://support.google.com/meet/ answer/9300310
  24. William A. Hamilton, Oliver Garretson, and Andruid Kerne. 2014. Streaming on twitch: fostering participatory communities of play within live mixed media. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, Toronto Ontario Canada, 1315-1324. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288. 2557048
  25. Steve Harrison. 2009. Media Space 20+ Years of Mediated Life (1st ed.). Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated.
  26. Christian Heath and Paul Luff. 1993. Disembodied conduct: Interactional asym- metries in video-mediated communication. Technology in working order: Studies of work, interaction, and technology (1993), 35-54. Publisher: Citeseer.
  27. Helene Hembrooke and Geri Gay. 2003. The laptop and the lecture: The effects of multitasking in learning environments. Journal of computing in higher education 15, 1 (2003), 46-64. ISBN: 1042-1726 Publisher: Springer.
  28. Hemshorn de Sánchez Clara S. and Meinecke Annika L. 2020. Social Influence in Meetings: A Gender Perspective. In Managing Meetings in Organizations, Annika L. Meinecke, Joseph A. Allen, and Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock (Eds.). Research on Managing Groups and Teams, Vol. 20. Emerald Publishing Limited, 113-142. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1534-085620200000020006
  29. Marion Hersh, Barbara Leporini, and Marina Buzzi. 2020. Accessibility Evaluation of Video Conferencing Tools to Support Disabled People in Distance Teaching, Meetings and other Activities. In ICCHP. 133.
  30. Ellen A. Isaacs and John C. Tang. 1997. Studying video-based collaboration in context: From small workgroups to large organizations. In Video-mediated communication, Kathleen E. Finn, Abigail J. Sellen, and Sylvia B. Wilbur (Eds.). 173-197. Publisher: New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  31. Olga Kozar. 2016. Text Chat During Video/Audio Conferencing Lessons: Scaf- folding or Getting in the Way? CALICO Journal 33, 2 (Feb. 2016), 231-259. https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.v33i2.26026
  32. Robert E. Kraut, Jolene Galegher, and Carmen Egido (Eds.). 2014. Intellectual Teamwork : Social and Technological Foundations of Cooperative Work. Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315807645
  33. Raja S Kushalnagar and Christian Vogler. 2020. Teleconference Accessibility and Guidelines for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users. In The 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. 1-6.
  34. Anastasia Kuzminykh and Sean Rintel. 2020. Classification of Functional At- tention in Video Meetings. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376546 event-place: Honolulu, HI, USA.
  35. Na Li and Mary Beth Rosson. 2014. Using annotations in online group chats. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 863-866. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557209
  36. Lili Liu, Ayoung Suh, and Christian Wagner. 2016. Watching online videos interactively: the impact of media capabilities in Chinese Danmaku video sites. Chinese Journal of Communication 9, 3 (July 2016), 283-303. https://doi.org/10. 1080/17544750.2016.1202853
  37. Zhicong Lu, Michelle Annett, and Daniel Wigdor. 2019. Vicariously Experienc- ing it all Without Going Outside: A Study of Outdoor Livestreaming in China. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 3, CSCW (Nov. 2019), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359127
  38. Zhicong Lu, Seongkook Heo, and Daniel J. Wigdor. 2018. StreamWiki: Enabling Viewers of Knowledge Sharing Live Streams to Collaboratively Generate Archival Documentation for Effective In-Stream and Post Hoc Learning. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2, CSCW (Nov. 2018), 1-26. https: //doi.org/10.1145/3274381
  39. Paul Luff, Christian Heath, Naomi Yamashita, Hideaki Kuzuoka, and Marina Jirotka. 2016. Embedded reference: translocating gestures in video-mediated interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 49, 4 (2016), 342-361. ISBN: 0835-1813 Publisher: Taylor & Francis.
  40. Xiaojuan Ma and Nan Cao. 2017. Video-based Evanescent, Anonymous, Asyn- chronous Social Interaction: Motivation and Adaption to Medium. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and So- cial Computing. ACM, Portland Oregon USA, 770-782. https://doi.org/10.1145/ 2998181.2998256
  41. Jennifer Marlow, Eveline van Everdingen, and Daniel Avrahami. 2016. Taking Notes or Playing Games?: Understanding Multitasking in Video Communication. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing. ACM, San Francisco California USA, 1726-1737. https: //doi.org/10.1145/2818048.2819975
  42. Joseph F McCarthy. 2005. Digital Backchannels in Shared Physical Spaces: Expe- riences at an Academic Conference. (2005), 4.
  43. Microsoft. 2021. Express yourself in Teams meetings with live reac- tions. https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/express-yourself-in-teams- meetings-with-live-reactions-a8323a40-3d07-4129-934b-305370a36e21
  44. Microsoft. 2021. View live transcription in a Teams meeting. https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/view-live-transcription-in-a- teams-meeting-7a1401ec-73b4-431d-875a-8b6af82b3e15
  45. Robert B. Ochsman and Alphonse Chapanis. 1974. The effects of 10 commu- nication modes on the behavior of teams during co-operative problem-solving.
  46. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 6, 5 (1974), 579-619. ISBN: 0020- 7373 Publisher: Elsevier.
  47. Judith S. Olson and Gary M. Olson. 2013. Working Together Apart: Collaboration over the Internet. Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics 6, 5 (Nov. 2013), 1-151. https://doi.org/10.2200/S00542ED1V01Y201310HCI020 Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers.
  48. John Rieman. 1993. The diary study: a workplace-oriented research tool to guide laboratory efforts. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems -CHI '93. ACM Press, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 321-326. https://doi.org/10.1145/169059.169255
  49. Sean Rintel. 2013. Video calling in long-distance relationships: The opportunistic use of audio/video distortions as a relational resource. The Electronic Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronic de Communication (EJC/REC) 23 (2013).
  50. Sean Rintel, Priscilla Wong, Advait Sarkar, and Abigail Sellen. 2020. Methodology and Participation for 2020 Diary Study of Microsoft Employees Experiences in Re- mote Meetings During COVID-19. Technical Report 2020-10-FOW-SIM1. Microsoft Research. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/methodology- and-participation-for-2020-diary-study-of-microsoft-employees-experiences- in-remote-meetings-during-covid-19/
  51. Karen Ruhleder and Brigitte Jordan. 2001. Co-Constructing Non-Mutual Realities: Delay-Generated Trouble in Distributed Interaction. Comput. Supported Coop. Work 10, 1 (Jan. 2001), 113-138. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011243905593 Place: USA Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  52. Katrin Schoenenberg, Alexander Raake, and Judith Koeppe. 2014. Why are you so slow?-Misattribution of transmission delay to attributes of the conversation partner at the far-end. International journal of human-computer studies 72, 5 (2014), 477-487. ISBN: 1071-5819 Publisher: Elsevier.
  53. Lisa A Schur, Mason Ameri, and Douglas Kruse. 2020. Telework after COVID: a "silver lining" for workers with disabilities? Journal of occupational rehabilitation 30, 4 (2020), 521-536.
  54. Joseph Seering, Robert Kraut, and Laura Dabbish. 2017. Shaping Pro and Anti-Social Behavior on Twitch Through Moderation and Example-Setting. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. ACM, Portland Oregon USA, 111-125. https: //doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998277
  55. Lucas M. Seuren, Joseph Wherton, Trisha Greenhalgh, and Sara E. Shaw. 2021. Whose turn is it anyway? Latency and the organization of turn-taking in video- mediated interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 172 (2021), 63 -78. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2020.11.005
  56. John C. Tang, Gina Venolia, and Kori M. Inkpen. 2016. Meerkat and Periscope: I Stream, You Stream, Apps Stream for Live Streams. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 4770-4780. https://doi.org/10. 1145/2858036.2858374
  57. Chris Weaver. 2004. Building highly-coordinated visualizations in improvise. In IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization. IEEE, 159-166.
  58. Donghee Yvette Wohn. 2019. Volunteer Moderators in Twitch Micro Com- munities: How They Get Involved, the Roles They Play, and the Emotional Labor They Experience. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Hu- man Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, Glasgow Scotland Uk, 1-13. https: //doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300390
  59. Donghee Yvette Wohn and Guo Freeman. 2020. Audience Management Practices of Live Streamers on Twitch. In ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences. ACM, Cornella, Barcelona Spain, 106-116. https://doi.org/10. 1145/3391614.3393653
  60. Qunfang Wu, Yisi Sang, and Yun Huang. 2019. Danmaku: A New Paradigm of Social Interaction via Online Videos. ACM Transactions on Social Computing 2, 2 (Oct. 2019), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1145/3329485
  61. Sarita Yardi. 2006. The Role of the Backchannel in Collaborative Learning Envi- ronments. (2006), 7.
  62. Zoom.us. 2021. Using in-meeting chat. https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/ articles/203650445-Using-in-meeting-chat

Related papers

Meeting (the) Pandemic: Videoconferencing Fatigue and Evolving Tensions of Sociality in Enterprise Video Meetings During COVID-19
Abigail Sellen

Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2022

When COVID-19 led to mandatory working from home, significant blind spots in supporting the sociality of working life-in the moment and over time-were revealed in enterprise video meetings, and these were a key factor in reports about videoconferencing fatigue. Drawing on a large study (N = 849) of one global technology company's employees' experiences of all-remote video meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, we use a dialectic method to explore the tensions expressed by employees around effectiveness and sociality, as well as their strategies to cope with these tensions. We argue that videoconferencing fatigue arose partly due to work practices and technologies designed with assumptions of steady states and taken-for-granted balances between task and social dimensions of work relationships. Our analysis offers a social lens on videoconferencing fatigue and suggests the need to reconceptualize ideas around designing technologies and practices to enable both effectiveness and sociality in the context of video meetings.

View PDFchevron_right
Association for Information Systems AIS Electronic Library ( AISeL ) All Sprouts Content Sprouts 4-10-2008 ' Invisible Whispering ' : Instant Messaging in Meetings
Julie Rennecker

2017

We use Goffman’s characterization of "front" and "backstage" interaction practices to analyze how the use of instant messaging in both face-to-face and technology-mediated meetings alters the spatial, temporal, and social configurations of meetings. In an interview study of workers in two organizations, we found that workers used instant messaging during face-to-face meetings and telephone conference calls (1) to participate concurrently in "front" and "backstage" interactions, (2) to participate in multiple, concurrent, "backstage" conversations, and (3) to manage and influence front stage activities through concurrent backstage conversations. These interactions would be either physically impossible or socially constrained without the use of instant messaging. We draw on psychology, GSS, and communication studies to consider the implications for group work.

View PDFchevron_right
Where Do We Meet? Key Factors Influencing Collaboration Across Meeting Spaces
Beat Signer, Sandra Trullemans

2023

Over the past years, there has been a shift towards online and hybrid meeting forms in workplace environments, partly as a consequence of various COVID-19 restrictions. However, the decision-making process on how to best collaborate with team members is predominantly driven by practical concerns. While there is a significant body of literature about where to best meet, this knowledge is fragmented across various disciplines and hard to use in novel meeting solutions. We present the Cross-Space Collaboration model which identifies the main factors that drive the features of in-person collaboration and the meeting aspects that influence these factors such as cognitive load. We designed the model to give guidance to teams and individuals on how to meet in order to have a higher collaboration effectiveness. Finally, we outline how the model can bring added value within new meeting solutions, next generation virtual reality meeting spaces and educational settings.

View PDFchevron_right
Invisible Whispering': Instant Messaging in Meetings
Sean Hansen

2005

Organizational decision making is dominated by teams. When an important decision is required, a team is often formed to make it or to advise the individual decision maker, because a team has more resources, knowledge, and political insight than any one individual working alone. As teams have become geographically distributed, collaboration technology has come to play an important role in such collective decision making efforts. Instant messaging (IM) is an increasingly prevalent workplace collaboration technology that enables near-synchronous text exchanges on a variety of devices. We examined the use of IM during face-to-face, telephone, and computer-mediated team meetings, a practice we call "invisible whispering." We introduce Goffman's characterization of social interaction as dramatic performance, differentiable into "front stage" and "backstage" exchanges, to analyze how invisible whispering alters the socio-spatial and temporal boundaries of team decision making. Using IM, workers were able to influence front stage decision making through backstage conversations, often participating in multiple backstage conversations simultaneously. This type of interaction would be either physically impossible or socially constrained without the use of IM. We examine how invisible whispering changes the processes of collaborative decision making and how these new processes may affect the efficiency and effectiveness of collaborative decision making, as well as participation, satisfaction, relationships among team members, and individual attention.

View PDFchevron_right
Gaming for Meaningful Interactions in Teleworking Lessons Learned during the COVID-19 Pandemic from Integrating Gaming in Virtual Meetings
Fernando Kleiman

Digital Government: Research and Practice, 2020

The recent need for social-distancing caused by COVID-19 resulted in working remotely, which can cause loneliness and disconnect from the organization. The pandemic stimulated people to look for novel ways to interact and, at the same time, socialize with each other. The change to home office increased the number of people using digital video calls; however, these impose restrictions on social bonding. In this commentary, we argue that the social bonding capacity of video calls can be increased by using games. Playing games can create a common object with shared goals, which can give players the feeling of being in the same environment, belonging to the same organization, working on joint objectives, and give an enjoyable experience. All work activities will unlikely return to the office after the pandemic is over, and preparing for remote working and socialization is needed. We recommend several avenues for research, including researching the concepts of online socialization and ev...

View PDFchevron_right

Related topics

  • Computer Science

    • Cited by

    Seeing the faces is so important—Experiences from online team meetings on commercial virtual reality platforms
    Dmitry Alexandrovsky

    Frontiers in Virtual Reality

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, online meetings became common for daily teamwork in the home office. To understand the opportunities and challenges of meeting in virtual reality (VR) compared to videoconferences, we conducted the weekly team meetings of our human-computer interaction research lab on five off-the-shelf online meeting platforms over 4 months. After each of the 12 meetings, we asked the participants (N = 32) to share their experiences, resulting in 200 completed online questionnaires. We evaluated the ratings of the overall meeting experience and conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the quantitative data to compare VR meetings and video calls in terms of meeting involvement and co-presence. In addition, a thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed genuine insights covering five themes: spatial aspects, meeting atmosphere, expression of emotions, meeting productivity, and user needs. We reflect on our findings gained under authentic working conditions, deri...

    View PDFchevron_right
    Focus Time for Wellbeing and Work Engagement of Information Workers
    Shamsi Iqbal

    Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

    Having little time for focused work is a major challenge in information work. While research has explored computing-assisted user-facing solutions for protecting time for focused work, there is limited empirical evidence about the effectiveness of these features on wellbeing and work engagement. Towards this problem, we study the effects of automatically scheduling time for focused work on people's work calendars using the Focus Time feature on Outlook calendars. We conducted an experimental study over six weeks with 15 Treatment and 10 Control participants who responded to survey questions on wellbeing and work engagement throughout the study. We find that the Treatment participants showed higher wellbeing, including increased excitement, relaxation, and satisfaction, and decreased anger, frustration, tiredness, and stress. We study the needs, benefits, and challenges of scheduling focus time, and discuss the importance and design recommendations for enabling mechanisms and tools supporting focused work. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in ubiquitous and mobile computing; Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; • Applied computing → Psychology.

    View PDFchevron_right
    580 California St., Suite 400
    San Francisco, CA, 94104
    © 2025 Academia. All rights reserved