Computer Support of Team Work on Mobile Devices

Hilko Donker1 and Malte Blumberg2

1 Dresden University of Technology, Faculty of Computer Science, Noethnitzer Str. 46, 01187 Dresden 2 CoreMedia, Ludwig-Erhard-Str. 18, 20459 Hamburg [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. In this paper we present a general concept of a mobile access to a groupware. The central aspect is how to bridge the gap between Mobile Com- puting and Collaborative Software. Mobile devices have limited capabilities, and therefore only few user interactions are desired. Conversely, groupware requires numerous interactions in order to make virtual collaborative work effec- tive. First, we examine existing approaches and define our specific goal. Then, we present background on our research on user requirements. Afterwards, the general aspects of a prototype we developed are shown, including exemplary examples. After having given information about the first evaluation results, we end with a short conclusion stating our future work.

Keywords: Mobile Groupware, UI Design for mobile devices.

1 Introduction

Groupware systems are usually conceptualized as applications that enable computer supported cooperative work [4]. These systems support (small) groups of people who are involved in a common task and who work on common goals. Small group collaboration requires members coordinating their activities, recognizing the activities of other group members, and who are able to communicate with each other. Groupware systems have to provide a kind of “group feeling”, called collaboration awareness [1] [3]. The participants have to be aware of other users involved in the collaborative task. Today, users increasingly work in environments with varying resource constraints or where mobility is required. Mobile devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), smart phones and cell phones have become a standard equipment of employees working at different locations or on the move. With the massive introduction of web-enabled mobile devices, users of this kind of devices are able to access a Groupware system from almost everywhere. Mobile devices are an appropriate medium for the delivery of important and just-in-time information. The use of such mobile devices leads to a new generation of Groupware systems, called mobile Groupware systems [11]. Extending stationary Groupware concepts to mobile devices offers great potential. However, too straightforward approaches, e.g. simply using desktop Groupware systems on mobile devices, fail due to the different nature of mobile devices and networks [14]. Obviously,

J.A. Jacko (Ed.): Human-Computer Interaction, Part III, HCII 2011, LNCS 6763, pp. 38–47, 2011. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 Computer Support of Team Work on Mobile Devices 39 a system cannot deliver the same (amount of) information to a mobile device that it delivers to a desktop device. It has to adapt to the users’ context and deliver a reduced and adapted experience. Groupware systems significantly differ from single-user applications. Many users provide input (often simultaneously); output has to be processed for many users and shared data have to be kept consistent. This level of interaction is par- ticularly challenging to support using mobile technologies when synchrony and timeli- ness of information is an issue [13]. In this paper our focus will not be on the support of loosely coupled group members, but on people with a high interdependence, so called teams.

1.1 User Interface Design of Applications on Mobile Devices

The market for cell phones, smart phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) is one of the most dynamic and competitive markets in the consumer devices industry. The input and output capabilities of cell phones are different from laptops or desktop PCs. In spite of rapid developments (e.g. iPhone), mobile devices still have more restrictions than the stationary equivalents. The term “handheld” implies that screen space is a limiting resource for interface development on such devices. Mobile interaction design has been recently addressed in a large number of publications (e.g. [7][9][17]). Zhang et al. [18] give an overview of the literature available on UI design, usability and related topics for mobile devices, in particular for cell phones and, to a smaller extent, for PDAs. They discuss that mobile devices have unique features which pose a number of significant challenges for examining usability, such as mobile context, connectivity, small screen size and restrictive data entry methods. Considering the characteristics of mobile devices especially their pervasive and ubiquitous nature, the small size factor and the unique interaction modalities (e.g., touch screens, stylus, fingers, and combinations of the previous), a new range of usage paradigms has emerged [15]. As a consequence new usability guidelines have been established in order to provide users with applications that enhance their tasks and activities. Therefore, we put high effort on finding out the requirements for the mobile access to the Groupware.

1.2 Mobile Groupware

Roth et al. argue that although several Groupware systems are available, they can hardly be adapted to handheld devices [13]. Straightforward approaches, such as simply cross-compiling existing applications, fail owing to the specific properties of handheld devices and the connecting network: Handheld devices have low computa- tional power, small memory and usually no mass storage devices. Handheld operating systems do not offer the same variety of services as desktop operating systems. Hand- held applications follow a different usage paradigm. Network connections are still a problem. Litiu et al. point out that Groupware systems will dedicatedly need to be developed to work in such environments [12]. The variability occurs along several dimensions: user and application demands, user mobility and intermittent connectivity, hardware and network variability. From our point of view mobile collaboration creates the possibility for users to be connected to their work environment while they are on the move. Some of the 40 H. Donker and M. Blumberg improvements are: informal meetings between meetings and working on spontaneous thoughts or urgent issues. Conclusively the attempt of not distinguishing between mobile scenarios and conventional situations is wrong. Mobile collaboration will not be possible in any given situation. It is necessary to evaluate the nature of mobile scenarios in order to decide, which situations are capable for mobile collaboration.

1.3 Work in Teams

Our objective is to realize a mobile computer support of the work in virtual teams. It is important to reflect on the different organizational roles in teams and on the user tasks in these teams. These roles are comparable in teams and virtual teams. It is essential to distinguish between different roles in collaborative software [16]. There are many different approaches when analyzing roles in teams [10]. We have limited our distinction to roles considering work positions and not tasks. The 3 roles we analyzed are: team member, team leader and customer or supervisor. We believe that a team leader will derive much benefit from a mobile access to a Groupware. It is crucial for him to know the current state of the team’s project so that he can react appropriately. He is involved in almost all essential decisions regarding the team’s process. Therefore, he or she needs to be able to coordinate, communicate and collaborate promptly when urgent issues come up. A mobile access will also create advantages for team members. The effectiveness of a team will increase, if team members have the opportunity to stay constantly in contact with each other. A mobile access will therefore help to create a strong togeth- erness in the team. Furthermore, team members can use a mobile access to react to urgent issues on short notice.

2 Requirements Analysis

We put high effort in finding out the requirements for the mobile access to the desktop Groupware JoinedForcedGroups. We based our assumptions for building the mobile application on 4 steps, finding out what needed to be supported and what did not. First, we needed to find out where and when a mobile access is needed. Working on mobile devices is only desired in certain situations. So, we had to do a substantial scenario analysis. Second the stakeholders needed to be identified, finding out who needed to be supported by a mobile access, who would benefit and who would not. Third after finding out who uses the mobile access, we had to examine the tasks of all identified stakeholders. Fourth and last we could conceptualize how the users’ tasks needed to be supported. This step faced actual user actions, and therefore the actual development of the prototype could found on these results.

2.1 Scenarios of Mobile Work

A mobile access to software needs to fit useful mobile situations. The influencing factors describing such a mobile situation are: − User Position (e.g. “in a train”, “walking”, “in a coffee bar”), − Amount of distraction (e.g. “driving a car”, “attending a meeting”), Computer Support of Team Work on Mobile Devices 41

− Importance (e.g. “crucial project issue”, “customer request”), − Available mobile device (e.g. “cell phone”, “laptop”), − Connection, (e.g. “3G”, “WIFI”). When a situation is examined, every factor has to be evaluated. As a result, the necessity for mobile work can be determined for every factor. A scenario is useful for mobile collaboration when no resulting necessity of a factor has been rated “not given”.

2.2 User Tasks

We needed to find out, what kind of tasks needed to be supported when conceptualiz- ing the mobile collaboration access. We followed a three-step process: First we identified the general tasks coming up in a team’s lifecycle. Second we built a matrix combining these tasks with the functions a groupware offers to support collaboration. Third and last we examined which tasks were useful to support in a mobile scope. Our goal was to narrow down the entireness of team tasks to the most essential ones while the users are in a mobile situation. We wanted to be able to let the mobile access focus on user tasks with the most benefit. Of course, the nature of tasks in a mobile scope differs from the conventional ways of working with a Groupware. Thus, we wanted find out which tasks had the capability of being altered accordingly to make a mobile access to JoinedForcedGroups a benefit. We restructured the user tasks to find out which ones we needed to focus on developing our mobile access. We chose the 3 categories “tasks that work both in a mobile environment and in a stationary environment”, ”tasks that had to be altered to work in a mobile environment” and ”tasks that do not work in a mobile environment at all”. First we analyze the tasks of the team leaders: − Tasks that could be directly adapted from stationary to mobile environment are e.g.: Spread information, develop ideas, rate ideas, quality assurance. − Tasks that work differently in a mobile environment are e.g.: None. − Tasks that do not work in a mobile environment e.g.: Compose teams, Give feedback on personal development of team members. Second we analyze the tasks of the team members: − Tasks that could be directly adapted from stationary to mobile environment are e.g.: Explain goals and assign tasks. − Tasks that work differently in a mobile environment are e.g.: Communicate idea suggestions, read ideas, create and spread short pieces of information. − Tasks that do not work in a mobile environment are e.g.: Present ideas, develop prototypes, build an infrastructure.

3 Concept and Prototype

There is one key factor when developing mobile Groupware access: Adapting the principles of collaborative work to mobile environments. Especially when an existing 42 H. Donker and M. Blumberg

Groupware system needs to be extended by a mobile access, several issues need to be faced. The user experience of the stationary Groupware product needs to be transformed for mobile devices. Users who know e.g. JoinedForcedGroups should not have problems in switching between the desktop Groupware and the mobile equivalent. In order to ensure mobile usability, a drastic reduction of work steps needs to be done. Users should get their tasks done as fast as possible. As a consequence, there is a correlation between the importance of a collaborative task and the effort to execute this task in a mobile environment. Therefore, it is essential to focus on events like the central ele- ment of a mobile groupware access. Not minimizing but mobilizing is the way of adapting a stationary product for mobile work [2].

3.1 User Interface Guidelines

A mobile user interface has to be simple. In contrast to conventional computers (e.g. desktop PC, laptop) mobile devices still have elementary constraints regarding the user interaction. This range is from difficult text entries to small displays that can hold only little information [2]. Facing these restrictions we developed guidelines for our mobile user interface. 1. Focus on events: We built an event feed where users can easily see what has hap- pened in their team since their last login. Users can be notified through different channels when a certain event occurs. Users have easy ways of reacting to an event. Each event holds a link that refers to the source where the user can interact appropriately. 2. Save space: The space on the top of each page is the most important one, since data shown there can be seen without scrolling. A user first wants to know the context before interacting. All information on collaborative work (e.g. new entries, mes- sage contents, events) is located on the top of the screen. Functions and notifica- tions are always on the very bottom of the screen. In list screens we cut off long texts after some length, giving users the possibility to view the whole text by simply clicking on it. 3. Adapt Navigation to mobile needs: All areas are in hierarchical order, building a consistent network from higher to lower levels of screens. A user can always see what area he is using. We preserved a fixed space for direct hierarchical navigation. 4. Offer help functions: All screens hold help texts. Contextual help can be accessed by a unique key or short cut. 5. Offer administrational functions for mobile needs: Only essential functions for mobile work (e.g. notification settings, device settings) are available for admini- stration. Login and logoff have been built as simple as possible. Users stay logged on if desired. Furthermore device and personal settings are stored automatically. 6. Keep the access consistent and unique: The stationary groupware’s look-and-feel was adapted for the mobile access. Elements on the screen have their fixed places. Consistent symbols were used for fixed functions. Consistent hot keys were as- signed. Computer Support of Team Work on Mobile Devices 43

3.2 Example Cases

The collaborative elements of our mobile access are much easier to follow when examples are given. Therefore, we picked out use cases of a team leader working on a moderation task and a team member collaborating by using the brainstorming module.

Fig. 1. Left: Mobile Adaption of the Module Manager, Right: Mobile Adaption of the Brain- storming Module

As team moderators need to fulfill further tasks, a special area for team manage- ment is available. In this case moderators set up modules for the team. They can define certain time spans for each available module. For instance, moderators can re- strict the access to a brainstorming module only to team phases where general ideas have to be developed. Moreover, moderators can edit a virtual flip chart. This works as a central point of information. Anything written on the flip chart will be shown to all team members as soon as they log on to the team. Important updates or general information can be put here. The left screenshot in Fig. 1.shows the mobile represen- tation of a so-called module manager. Moderators use this service to set up modules for the team. In this case, three modules have been activated for the according team, each one with different time spans. The moderator sees the overview, while having ways to edit, delete or edit modules. The underlying modular concept of JoinedForcedGroups offers a basic structure for collaborative work: For different tasks of the team different suitable modules are available. The Groupware offers quite a variety of modules, having its focus on the support of creative tasks. All actual collaborative work takes place in the according modules. When working on ideas, people use brainstorming as a creativity technique. The mobile adaptation of Joined- ForcedGroup’s brainstorming module can be seen in the right screenshot in fig.1. The module offers different sessions for different topics. In the mobile version, only the current session is shown on the screen. The user can scroll through the al- ready given ideas or search for a specific idea by using the dedicated search box. Moreover new ideas can be submitted by using the according link. Again, the navigation area on top of the screen gives direct feedback on the current user’s position. 44 H. Donker and M. Blumberg

4 Study

4.1 Method and Participants

In a study with 10 participants working in pairs on specific tasks we analyzed the usability and the acceptance of our mobile groupware front end. During the study each participant had to act as a team leader first. The team leaders had to prepare the work for their teams. Afterwards these preparations were taken into account for the work of the second person in the team in the role as a team member. The tasks of team leaders and the actual team work differed extensively so that several collaborative tasks were considered while working with the system. Each participant had to fulfill a coordination task, a communication task, a cooperation task, a moderation task an information search and configuration task. After all participants’ had acted both as a team leader and a team member all participants had to fill in a questionnaire. The evaluation of the usability was based on the criteria of ISO 9241 part 110. For the evaluation of the mobile front end of the Groupware we focused on the criteria “suitability for the task”, “self-descriptiveness” and “conformity with user expectations”. As a measurement instrument the IsoMet- rics [5] questionnaires for these criteria were used. In order to measure the pragmatic and the hedonic quality of the prototype we used the Attrakdiff [8]. It was our objective to evaluate the mobile Groupware front end by participants coming from a suitable context. Therefore all participants had work experience in business jobs, they were experienced in team work, they worked in mobile scenarios and they had experience with Groupware. We had ten participants five female and five male. The age of the participants was between 27 and 35. Seven participants were employees and three of them were freelancers. Most of the participants used chats and messengers in their daily life. Other Groupware features were known and some of them were frequently used.

4.2 Findings

The realization of the “suitability for the task” of the mobile access was measured from “good” up to “very good” by the participant. 89% of the questions unitized “suitability for the task” were answered by a “good” and “very good”. 3% of the questions were answered with an “average” and 3% with a “bad”. Things which were rated into these areas are e.g. the positioning of interaction objects and information objects on the screen. The criteria “self-descriptiveness” was only rated with moder- ate ratings. Regarding the questions unitized “self-descriptiveness” 38% were rated „good“ and 31% „very good“. Although these results are quite good 15% of the questions were not answered. Problems were e.g. identified concerning questions whether items are disabled in some situations. Analyzing the three considered criteria of the ISO 9241, part 110 the criterion “conformity with user expectations” achieved the best results. Regarding the questions unitized “conformity with user expectations” 55% of the questions were marked with a “very good” and 36% of the questions with a “good”. Concerning this criterion the unique design of the mobile access were men- tioned as a positive item. Computer Support of Team Work on Mobile Devices 45

Fig. 2. Ratings of the pragmatic and the hedonic quality of the mobile access

Comparing the pragmatic and the hedonic quality the mobile JFG access we used AttrakDiff. The results are shown in Fig. 2.The mobile JFG was marked with a “desired”. The small confidential square indicates the agreement of the participants concerning their impression. The pragmatic quality was rated higher than the hedonic quality. We expected this result, as the main focus of our mobile access to the Groupware was supporting the users to fulfill their tasks. The results indicate that we achieved this objective. Never- theless the ratings considering the hedonic quality of the software are absolutely positive. These results indicate that it was a joy for the users to work with the mobile access. A detailed analysis of the hedonic quality is shown in Fig. 3. Beside the pragmatic quality in this diagram the hedonic quality is divided into two sub-qualities, namely identity and stimulation. The sub-quality “identity” (HQ-I) indicates in which way a user identifies with the product. Within the sub-qualities the “identity” achieved the best results. The participants could identify themselves with mobile access even if they still recognized the pragmatic quality of the user interface.

Fig. 3. Mean ratings of the dimensions “pragmatic quality” (PQ), “hedonic quality sub divided into “identity” (HQ-I) and “stimulation” (HQ-S), “attractiveness” (ATT)

The sub-quality “stimulation” (HQ-S) indicates the extent to which a product sup- ports these needs by offering novel, interesting and stimulating features, contents, interactions and styles of presentation. The mean value of “stimulation” is less than the ratings of the other qualities. The users identified themselves with the user interface but they did not recognize it as novel or stimulating. 46 H. Donker and M. Blumberg

And finally the “attractiveness” (ATT) was measured. This is a subjective judg- ment of the attractiveness of a product. It is a matter of global rating on the basis of quality perception. Also the attractiveness was rated positive. In the detailed questionnaire the participants classified the user interface as presentable and invitational.

5 Conclusion and Future Work

The usability as well as the attractiveness of the mobile Groupware user interface were rated positive by the participants of our study. The user interface fits the needs of the users and it enables the users to interact with the Groupware working on their tasks while they are in a mobile situation. On the move it offers the users the addi- tional benefit to be able to continue the collaboration with their colleagues. We real- ized an approach which enables people to establish an intensive virtual collaboration even if they were not able to meet physically or if they had no system with a large screen available. In a first step we focused on realizing a mobile user interface for some of the modules of a stationary groupware which are very promising to work on while on the move. These modules support typically an asynchronous collaboration. In a next step even synchronous modules have to be considered. Chat systems and voice over IP are state of the art on mobile devices. Concerning a mobile synchronous support of creativity techniques interesting research questions have to be analyzed. A ubiquitous mobile access to a groupware could be another promising approach for future work in this domain.

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