Tom Rodden

“He’s Behind You”: The Experience of Presence in Shared Virtual Environments

In this chapter we seek to develop an understanding of the nature of presence in virtual environments from a real-world exploration of first, how presence is manifest in practice within virtual environments and second, the means by which everyday users experience virtual environments. The ethnographic study presented in this chapter is part of a multidisciplinary approach to the design of online large-scale collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) undertaken by the authors in a range of projects. Over the last few years a large number of systems to support online virtual worlds and CVEs have emerged. These include 3D environments: MASSIVE (Greenhalgh and Benford, 1995), DIVE (Dix, 1997), AlphaWorlds, Blaxxun, VWWW; 2D graphical systems: ThePalace; and textual environments: MUDs (Edwards, 1994).

“They’re Supposed to Be Fixing it”: Requirements and System Redesign

Much of the literature on the requirements process focuses on the initial stages of system design, when it is essential for designers to obtain as clear a statement as possible of the intended purpose and function of a system. The process of requirements capture and presentation is highlighted by the software engineering community as error-prone, and one where even the simplest error can have significant and costly implications. Numerous methods have been proposed to facilitate this process (see, for example, McDermid 1994, Sommerville 1992). These methods focus on both the development of techniques to elicit requirements from users and notational approaches to allow these requirements to be presented to systems developers.

Lessons from Paperwork: Designing a Cooperative Shared Object Service

The sharing of information plays a central role in most work settings and many applications require facilities which promote cooperative access to shared information. It is important that these facilities are informed from an understanding of the nature of document use in work settings. This paper turns to the use of documents as a means of understanding the use of shared information. The pertinent features of documents are outlined before a critical re-examination of a previous field study is presented. Finally some of the facilities provided by a shared object service are outlined. This service has been motivated by many of the observations presented in the field study.