Abstract:

Group work frequently involves transitions between periods of active collaboration and periods of individual activity. We aim to support this typical work practice by introducing four tabletop direct-manipulation interaction techniques that can be used to transition the status of an electronic document from private to group-accessible. After presenting our four techniques - release, relocate, reorient, and resize - we discuss the results of an empirical study that compares and evaluates these mechanisms for sharing documents in a co-lcoated tabletop environment.