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1 18 Chapter 4 Design for collaboration and communication

Figure 4.7 Hypermirror in action, showing perception of virtual personal space. (a) A I
woman is in one room (indicated by arrow on screen), (b) while a man and another woman
in the other room chat to each other. They move apart when they notice they are "overlap-
ping" her and (c) virtual personal space is established.

though they were physically in different places (Morikawa and Maesako, 1998).
Mirror reflections of people in different places were synthesized and projected
onto a single screen, so that they appeared side by side in the same virtual space.
In this way, the participants could see both themselves and others in the same
seamless virtual space. Observations of people using the system showed how
quickly they adapted to perceiving themselves and others in this way. For exam-
ple, participants quickly became sensitized to the importance of virtua1,personal
space, moving out of the way if they perceived they were overlapping someone
else on the screen (see Figure 4.7).

4.2.3 Coordination mechanisms

Coordination takes place when a group of people act or interact together to
achieve something. For example, consider what is involved in playing a game of
basketball. Teams have to work out how to play with each other and to plan a set
of tactics that they think will outwit the other team. For the game to proceed both
teams need to follow (and sometimes contravene) the rules of the game. An in-
credible amount of coordination is required within a team and between the com-
peting teams in order to play.
In general, collaborative activities require us to coordinate with each other,
whether playing a team game, moving a piano, navigating a ship, working on a
large software project, taking orders and serving meals in a restaurant, constructing
a bridge or playing tennis. In particular, we need to figure out how to interact with
one another to progress with our various activities. To help us we use a number of
coordinating mechanisms. Primarily, these include:
verbal and non-verbal communication
schedules, rules and conventions
shared external representations