Melora Zaner

HutchWorld: Lessons Learned - A Collaborative Project: Fred Hutchsinson Cancer Research Center & Microsoft Research

The Virtual World Group (VWG) in Microsoft Research and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (the Hutch) are collaborating to develop and study online social support systems for patients at the Hutch. Medical research has shown that social support contributes positively toward psychological and physical well-being. However, in the real world, it is difficult for immune-compromised patients, their families, and their caregivers to interact with others facing similar challenges. In order to address the needs of Hutch patients and their caregivers, Microsoft and the Hutch developed HutchWorld, a Virtual Worlds application, to provide online, computermediated social and informational support. The present paper describes the approach of each design phase of the project, and lessons learned about a) developing an interactive online support system for a specific audience, b) the deployment of the online social support system to its target audience, c) the rigorous study of both its use and its impact on user well-being, and d) issues affecting collaboration among technology, medical, and research groups.

Digital backchannels in shared physical spaces: attention, intention and contention

There are a variety of digital tools for enabling people who are separated by time and space to communicate and collaborate on shared interests and tasks. The widespread use of some of these tools, such as instant messaging and group chat, coupled with the increasingly widespread availability of wireless access to the Internet (WiFi), have created new opportunities for using these collaboration tools by people sharing physical spaces in real time. The use of these tools to augment face-to-face meetings has created benefits for some participants and distractions-and detractions-for others. Our panelists will discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of these emerging uses of collaborative tools.

Wireless brainstorming: overcoming status effects in small group decisions

Social factors, such as status differences, may prevent some members from participating in group decisions. Computerized group decision support systems (GDSSs) can reduce social influences by allowing group members to contribute anonymously and in parallel. This study explores how a simple GDSS on a wireless handheld-device can augment face-to-face group decisions. Small groups of men and women brainstormed potential names for a computer game and voted for the best name using the wireless devices. The names generated were either associated with the person who produced them or not, and group member status was manipulated through the nature of the task and the proportions of men and women in the groups; men were more knowledgeable computer gamers and were always the numeric majority. We found-that men and women generated more ideas when they were anonymous, and- voting patterns were biased in favor of the ideas generated by men when members knew the ideas source, but not when the source was anonymous. These results suggest that a wireless GDSS can be used to reduce social bias that influences face-to-face decision making tasks.