Small Group Design Activity and Requirements on Collaborative Technologies

Abstract

In the last decade or so, many collaborative technologies have been developed which aim to allow people in geographically distributed locations to work together as if sharing the same space. Such tools range from the simple asynchronous resources of email and file transfer, to fully-featured collaborative virtual environments allowing virtual groups of designers to interact with virtual designs in real time. Despite many reported practical experiments with such tools, it is far from clear which flavour of collaborative technology best suits collaborative design. This study takes the approach of studying one particular form of design collaboration — the small group design meeting — and briefly discusses how such interaction could be technologically supported in virtual space. In particular, we will focus on the use of shared design workspace.