Drowning in worldwide awareness: Reflections on what a groupware user really needs

Virtual workspaces make it more difficult to maintain a sense of awareness about who else is present in the workspace, where they are operating, and what they are doing. In a physical workspace, people use peripheral vision, auditory cues, and quick glances to keep track of what goes on around them. In a groupware system, the visual field is greatly reduced, and many of our sensory perception for gathering information are unfit since the required information may be absent from the display. Groupware systems like BSCW resolve this problem by offering a variety of awareness features notifying users actions. Workflow management enhancements on top of BSCW additionally need application specific awareness. In this paper we try to discuss the problem of an overwhelming offer of awareness information, such as activity icons, notifications, RSS feeds, tool tips, etc, and how to tailor the goupware interface to the very different user demands.