This article focuses on our exploration of awareness issues through the design and long-term deployment of two systems: the Hermes office door display system (which enabled staff in a university department to post awareness messages to their door displays) and SPAM (a messaging system for supporting coordination between staff at two associated residential community care facilities). In the case of both systems, a significant number of the messages sent could be classified as relating to awareness. Furthermore, with both systems, the situatedness of displays (outside office doors in the case of Hermes and in staff offices in the case of SPAM) had a significant impact on the design and subsequent use of the deployed systems. In particular, the placement of displays provided significant context for awareness messages, including, for example, the identity of the sender of the message and the intended audience of the message. Both systems highlight the need for interaction methods that fit in with both normal working practices (and unplanned events) and that enable the user to manage communication channels. The need for appropriate levels of expressiveness and user control is also apparent: We present numerous examples of users controlling the precision of awareness information and sending awareness messages that have as much to do with playfulness as supporting coordination through activity awareness.
The Hermes office door display system and SPAM messaging system both represent significant and important longitudinal deployments in the field of CSCW. Both systems are leading examples of technology probes that, through incorporation of logging facilities, support the capture and subsequent understanding of key issues relating to adoption and appropriation by users. This article published in the highly ranked Human-Computer Interaction journal (impact factor 4.682) focuses on presenting the analysis of a long term study of the awareness issues arising from the use of these two situated display-based messaging systems. RAE_import_type : Journal article RAE_uoa_type : Computer Science and Informatics