Advanced Interaction:
Shared Spaces
Investigators: Russell Beale, Fatma Elsayed moawad, Mike Sharples, Daniel Witchett
Associated grants: Kaleidoscope, Microsoft, Mobile Devices - EPSRC Capital Equipment
Shared communal spaces are common using conventional technology: whiteboards, pinboards and blackboards now share the stage with Powerpoint-generated sequences of information - but whilst these offer differing levels of access, they are not as open to interaction as they might be. Technologies such as MSN messenger and chatrooms offer shared spaces but with usually limited interactive possibilities. This project is building on earlier concepts developed invFridge, but we are building publically-viewable, egalitarian shared spaces into which anyone can contribute i fthey have a suitably equipped mobile device.
A core part of the project is to build an application that works with a wireless network to provide a shared space for all wirelessly connected people to communicate in - to see who's there, to talk to them, to leave messages to each other, to share pictures etc. We'll try and project this space up onto the wall, so that everyone can interact with a really large version. People should be able to access this through both laptops with wireless cards in, and via Java-enabled mobile phones.
Other parts of the project are developing public mosaic spaces into which multimedia messages are submitted, annotated, and viewed; another strand is evaluating the differences between open public spaces and more private, invitation-only ones.
We are investigating both the usefulness of public spaces, and the nature of the interactions that they support: this ties in with other theoretical work.