Beyond the Laboratory:
Supporting Authentic Collaboration with Multiple Displays

Overview

It is increasingly common to find Multiple Display Environments (MDEs) in a variety of settings, including the workplace, the classroom, and perhaps soon, the home. While some technical challenges exist even in single-user MDEs, collaborative use of MDEs offers a rich set of opportunities for research and development. In this workshop, we will bring together experts in designing, developing, building and evaluating MDEs to improve our collective understanding of design guidelines, relevant real-world activities, evaluation methods and metrics, and opportunities for remote as well as collocated collaboration. We intend to create not only a broader understanding of this growing field, but also to foster a community of researchers interested in bringing these environments from the laboratory to the real world.

Workshop themes

In this workshop, we intended to explore the following research themes:

• Elicitation and process of distilling design guidelines for MDE systems and interfaces.
• Investigation and classification of activities suited for MDEs.
• Exploration and assessment of how existing groupware theories apply to collaboration in MDEs.
• Evaluation techniques and metrics for assessing effectiveness of prototype MDE systems and interfaces.
• Exploration of MDE use beyond strictly collocated collaboration.