Developing Usable Experiences

Collaboration Software Changed My Life

May 18th, 2011 8:47 pm —  40 views

When I first learned about the field of CSCW, I began to see the world differently. Here was an entire discipline focused on the science of using technology to communicate and collaborate. As surely as I knew the web was the way, I knew collaboration software was critical.

I was in a graduate class the fall of 2007. It was being taught by Gary Olson, a professor at the School of Information. In 1992, he published research showing the effectiveness of shared editing using a program they developed called ShrEdit. Professor Olson showed us pictures from their research project. One was a room filled with monochrome screens. Very old school looking.

Everyone knew how difficult it was to collaborate on a report or lengthy paper. Having network access helped, but then only one person could edit it at a time. Emailing a document back it forth happened a lot. Track changes could be useful if you knew how to use. In 1992, it was paper, pencils and a whiteboard or old school CRTs. The Internet was in its infancy.

It was in this course that I worked on a group project analyzing Google Docs, a web based document editor by Google. It was similar to MS Word, but in a browser. Better yet, a number of people could edit at the same time. Google Docs was a better way. I knew it immediately. Such things could make working with others so much easier.

The group project required that we find ways to improve it, and we came up with a few ideas such as showing the cursor position of other people editing the document. Since then, that feature and a number of other improvements, have been implemented by Google.

The technical challenges associated with multiple people working on the same digital artifact are significant. But the advantages afforded to people working collaboratively on the same document is considerable. Being able to see where a person’s cursor was, and whose cursor it was, and to see what they typed as they were typing it was mind boggling and totally awesome. I loved it!

This type of editing revelation was similar to the one I had when I first learned about wikis in 1999. I was using ModWiki, a Perl based web application, and wondered why more people weren’t using wikis. When I realized how simple it was to enable people to create and edit web pages together, I knew it would change the world. Just like I knew that databases behind web applications would change the world.

Fast forward a decade and I’m writing my 507th blog post talking about how people interact with technology. I’m doing it as the first featured blog post for a corporate wiki about collaboration resources!

Every day I interact with technology that connects me to co-workers, family, and friends. I’m in meetings using my computer, phone, and a video camera to interact with a dozen people in different locations. I can see when someone is talking but forgot to unmute their microphone. I can see people yawn or lose interest in what’s being said. All the while I have various instant messaging threads going with co-workers and teammates. Even people in the same web meeting, via yet another instant messaging application.

My daily life involves using working with computers and people to get work done and to help others get work done. I think about it how to make things better all the time. I love gadgets and technology that allow me to interact with information and people in different ways.

And I know there is always an easier way. It just takes time to find it.

Image: This is a picture of an adaptation made by a novice installer when code dictated a 4 inch pipe, even though the coupling was for a 3 inch pipe. It took some effort to crip the metal like that. But I couldn’t help but think there had to be an easier (and less hacked) solution. There was. That’s another story as well.

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One Response to “Collaboration Software Changed My Life”

  1. Dawn on May 28th, 2011 4:40 pm

    We had a whole basement full of metal crimped like that. Talk about inept installers! We had it all taken down and redone. Costly lesson. My comment has nothing to do with shared computer work…but still it was shared software that let me comment at all. I think.

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