How to improve team collaboration in an office environment with the help of large screen displays

Abstract

Displays of various sizes and forms have found its way to the modern collaborative setting. The research community is interested in studying how such settings can be improved but there still exists a gap in defining what kind of displays are best for what purposes and what kind of cues would be suitable for a particular display. It is interesting to learn how well an application built for a small display can work on a larger one and how seamlessly such system can switch context between displays. For example, a PowerPoint Presentation, designed for desktop screens are normally manipulated with the help of a mouse. But when they are displayed on a larger screen, is there a possibility for it to adapt to the dynamics of the new system? And also, how can the screen designs be adapted based on the location of the display for e.g. in a public, semi-public and a private setting. The effect of proximity to the display also affects how users tend to interact with them. There is an increasing need to understand such possibilities from the user’s perspective and to devise new technologies for the betterment of collaborative meetings.

This research reflects on a modern collaborative setting involving multiple displays and lists out the main pain points of using such systems and suggests design guidelines to overcome these. The outcome emerged from the study suggests that all collaborative settings should be built towards providing three main functions: Visibility, Flexibility and Involvement.