No Laggers: the Effects of Network Delays on Real-Time Groupware
Speaker
Carl Gutwin
Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Saskatchewan
When
-
Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)
Description
Delay is a fact of life in real-time groupware that operates on the real-world Internet. In this talk I will look at the problems that network delay causes for interaction in groupware, and at what can be done about it. Part one will look at the details of what actually happens when humans interact through a delayed link—because although many people (e.g. gamers) have noticed that delay causes problems, the specific reasons why these problems occur is less obvious. I will walk through several shared task situations where delay is an issue, and try to unpack what is going on underneath the surface. I will look specifically at visual communication in shared workspaces: prediction of another person’s movement, visual turn-taking, visual feedback, and gesture. Part two will then look at what can be done about the problems of delay. Although there are strategies for reducing or avoiding delay, it can never be removed entirely, and so I will argue for a different approach—that of adding visual elements to the workspace that reveal the presence and effects of delays to users.
Speaker's Bio
Dr. Carl Gutwin has undergraduate degrees in English literature and Computer Science, and received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Calgary where he worked on issues of group awareness in real-time distributed groupware. Dr. Gutwin is currently Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan, and holds a Canada Research Chair in Next-Generation Groupware. His research covers groupware architectures, groupware performance, and the development of discount evaluation techniques for multi-user systems. Recently he has been looking at usability problems caused by network delays in groupware, and how closely-coupled interactions can be supported in distributed systems.