Group Design Project 3
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[edit] Instructions for Problem Analysis
- For week two, you should analyze problems in social networking for the VMT project. Generate a list of problems that your group has discovered that are currently barriers to social networking for people participating in VMT. Where possible, document these problems from what you know about VMT, from your experiences trying to form effective groups in this course (or other courses with group work), from your Koi Resort design project, from your review of social networking literature and sites.
[edit] Comments on Group Statements
Gerry 09:54, 26 April 2007 (EDT)
The postings for this week assemble a useful collection of design issues for the VMT interface.
Some of these are related to features that are currently being implemented for the next version of the software (multiple tabs for whiteboards and browsers, a menu system in addition to the buttons, better help and tutorials, etc.). The idea of having multiple whiteboards is a complicated idea. At first it seems like it would be nice for each person to have a space where they could develop their ideas and presentations. But what does this do to the collaboration? Does it encourage people to work on their own instead of developing things interactively? And would the whole environment become too complicated, so that one person would not know what others were looking at or doing and the shared focus would be destroyed?
Some are related to design philosophies: e.g., wikis are committed to being open for all users to modify. This can cause obvious problems, with bots wipeing out whole pages, but it was a fundamental design commitment of wikis.
Some are more complicated than they may seem, like an un-do function. What if person B has commented on person A's chat or whiteboard post before it is undone -- then what does that comment refer to? What if B has drawn a graphical reference to the posting before it is undone? Can person C undo person A's posting? What should the history reflect if something is undone rather than simply erased? Design issues can be more complicated in multi-user systems than in single-user ones.
Some are simply bugs, such as chimes not ringing when they should. These are good to point out, but are not design issues. Nor do they focus on supporting social networking. They would not make good design projects for this quarter.
Some are just good ideas for new functions. They would need to be designed and tested. Even something that seems obvious like improved help is not so obvious. How do you provide help for users at very different levels of computer literacy so that you include help for advanced users without overwhelming beginners? How do you get users to actually spend the effort it takes to browse and learn from a help system? How can collaboration help with help -- and how should a help system be designed to encourage people to help each other?
Beyond a sort of debugging of the current VMT system, there was little analysis of what barriers to social networking exist for people participating in VMT. For instance, what problems exist in trying to form effective groups in this course (or other courses with group work), based on your visions of the Koi Resort design project, or from your review of social networking literature and sites. Here, some groups did mention profiles and improvements to the messaging system.
You also mentioned problems in having multiple people working in the whiteboard at the same time. Would locking of the textbox during editing help to prevent overwriting each other? Would using several small textboxes for different ideas allow people to post in parallel? Of course, the whiteboard was designed more for doing geometric drawings and posting equations then for doing collaborative writing. Collaborative writing is infamously difficult to support. The VMT whiteboard provides a space to put things for the group to share and point to, but may not be that good for collaborative co-construction of relatively large texts. The wiki may be better for large texts, once the details of the smaller texts are agreed to on the whiteboard. This could be a problem for design work this quarter.
[edit] Team A Statement
- Olivia, Seth, Brian
- Seth_E 21:23, 19 April 2007 (EDT)
We examined our experience from weeks 1 and 2, and came up with some areas where VMT can be improved.
VMT Social Networking Technical Issues:
- Inability for users to make simultaneous edits on the virtual whiteboard.
- whiteboard does not update very fast.
- should have some kind of undo/recover capability.
-incorporate webpage sharing capability.
- need ability to share video/other multimedia (many people are visual learners, so being able to upload a video into the shared space would facilitate learning).
- want a survey function to allow users to submit feedback about the technology and offer suggestions (particularly if the software is new and bug-ridden).
- include search option for finding relevant discussion postings/comments.
- FAQ button for frequently asked questions.
- allow for knowledge building and feedback about others' postings.
- sound alert does not work in chatroom, when there is a new message.
- task bar does not flash when there is a new message.
- email/message system is not user-friendly (one feature should allow the auto-forwarding of messages to a primary email..e.g. work email address).
- VMT system requires severa log-ins. It would be preferable to log-in in one step to enter desired room (vs. logging in to the Lounge, chatroom, and sandbox separately).
- team whiteboard area can should only be edited and viewed by belonging members and instructor.
(need for configurable security settings to prevent current situation where anyone can log in and accidentally or intentionally delete another group's work).
VMT Social Networking/Group Practice Issues:
- Miscommunication between members.
- Imbalance of workload among group members.
- unequal group distribution (some groups really large, some very small).
- difficult to come to a decision in large, opinionated groups (need appointed leader/facilitator).
- Need voting feature (to decide issues).
- one group should not steal ideas from another group's whiteboard brainstorming session.
- reminder feature for next chat session.
VMT Group formation issues:
- people not returning emails about invitations to join a group.
- don't know people's strengths/abilities when forming groups.
- users should be able to create a profile with personal and professional info (this will assist users in networking with each other and become more familiar).
- some children may be restricted by their parents in obtaining VMT accounts; hence they will be unable to participate in VMT activities.
[edit] Team B Statement
- Dave, Elizabeth, Fernando, Kate
- Fernando 02:44, 25 April 2007 (EDT)
[edit] Problems with Social Networking
- Privacy Issues - Spam and unwanted contacts.
- Annoying users.
- Nothing to do at some sites.
- Cybercrime.
- Blogging comes back to haunt you -- if you apply for a job they can check online to see if you have said anything awful and not hire you.
- Members that are not active do not help support the social network.
- Members in synchronous social networking environments (chats, whiteboards, etc...) who type extemely fast tend to overshadow or even confuse others.
- Issue of how much trust you can put in the information being provided.
- Parents are increasingly leery of social networking in general due to online predators and the like. They might need some reassurance about VMT and what it means (and doesn’t mean) for their children.
[edit] Problems Specific to VMT / Sugessions for Improvement
- No undo button, makes it difficult if an error is made in inputing or pasting text.
- Limited size of text boxes, when working with large amounts of text some of it gets lost in the bottom end of the text box.
- Unable to save and start a new white board to generate, this would allow better capability to branch off into new ideas. Would be nice to have tabs.
- Multiple users editing the same object causes changes to be lost or overwritten.
- Chat is slow and it would be nice to have an added voice program like Skype for those who wish to interact verbally. There is also a delay when posting items to the whiteboard before teammates can see what you've posted.
- Lacks a scheduling tool to show when and where people can meet.
- Lacks a user status message.
- Drawing tools limited and difficult to map out a visual representation of an idea.
- No printing function.
- No option to send messages to other email accounts.
- No spell check.
- Tool outage. Many issues trying to connect.
- Message forwarding to email.
[edit] Team C Statement
- Members Kevin, Ben, LisaG
- Date and Time of posting User:LisaG 21:21, 24 April 2007 (EDT)
Group statement on project:
Our group's discussions led to two categories of problems that we encountered and observed with VMT: Major (high impact to work performed) and Minor (medium impact to work performed).
Major problems with VMT:
-Multiple people cannot edit the whiteboard at the same time. The edits will override each other instead of merging together. The edit system would work better if the edits made to the whiteboard were made in real time to the other people logged into the chat room. That way multiple people could edit the same text box but in different places in the text at the same time. This would be more convenient then the current method of people having to take turns editing, assigning a single editor to add in ideas from chat, or creating multiple text boxes.
-The cut and paste options on the whiteboard do not copy highlighted text from chat. We were forced to use windows shortcut keys to copy and paste text from the chat into the whiteboard. While this work around does exist, altering the cut, copy, and paste icons for the whiteboard to also work in the chat box would make things easier and more productive for users.
-There is very little security after you log into the VMT lobby. While a record of any edits is made there is a potential for a single person to delete the work on the whiteboards of the other groups. While locking the individual rooms to members only isn't a good answer when the goal is to create an online knowledge building community. It might be better to limit deleting objects on a whiteboard to only members of the group that belong to the room. That way people outside the group could read and add to a discussion but would not be able to delete any information.
-There can be times when it is challenging to focus on particular ideas. This format definitely enables collaborative learning, but there could be fields for each assignment, with rotating roles, which would enable the work to move through stages. One possible solution would be the ability for group members to create multiple whiteboards which can exist simultaneously, and which can be accessed independently by various group members. Each whiteboard screen could be tabbed, enabling group members to quickly bring up any desired screen. This would allow for more focused work, and allow group members to more easily designate independent tasks and responsibilities. These screens could also be accessible from private knowledge areas, so that individual members can work on these screens independently, with the results eventually being accessible to the whole group.
-Reliable connectivity is a necessary feature for effective collaborative learning. Difficulty accessing the page, or unplanned log-offs, can cause loss of completed work and direction.
Minor problems with VMT:
-The chime for new messages in the chat box does not always work for all people.
-The ability to undo something that is deleted does not appear to be an option.
-When deleting a large amount of content from the whiteboard, it might be a good idea to have a confirmation box.
-There is no ability to have messages sent to your VMT account automatically forwarded to an email account. This would enable people to receive messages when they are not able to log into VMT.
-Does not have a feature in the chat window where a participant can "raise a hand" (click on a hand icon) to ask a question. This feature is used in Net Meeting and is especially helpful in a chat/whiteboard session with a large number of participants.
-The whiteboard is a fixed size. This leads to text being lost off the bottom of the whiteboard and at times this can go unnoticed.
-The sandbox feature allows for students to experiment with various features, but the lack of structure in experimentation can easily lead to an experience which fails to capture the dynamics of what it is like to use the features in a collaborative learning setting. It may have been beneficial to have a "test" assignment with which a group could learn the various features available to them. Some kind of tutorial might also be beneficial, as it would offer structure and help students discover features they might otherwise remain unaware of.
[edit] Team D Statement
- Bertha, Eric, Rajeev
- Jeeves5454 20:39, 19 April 2007 (EDT)
The VMT group and website have made a good start promoting a collaborative experience dedicated to Mathematical problem solving and group-think. There are many innovative techniques utilized to promote an atmosphere of healthy argumentative discussions as well as easily collaborate on multiple projects over a short term. The tool utillizes a cross platform application that can be easily set up by any user and is designed to "just work:, which is necessary to promote good user experiences. However the implementation of the original requirements has left a small gap between real world implementation, and the sought after goal of total collaborative effort. This gap includes some must have features that are critical to improving user experience and encouraging collaborative projects under the Information system regime, as well as some further improvements, that can generally improve efficiency in work process and workflow.
Although the collaborative experience has been productive our group has identified a few features that we believe would enhance the experience of the VMT website. Initially we have had issues syncing our meeting time from Eastern Time to Central Time where some of our group resides. The time stamps show the local time for each user and this can lead to confusion, particularly when you expect a global meeting place. A recommendation would be to standardize to a global standard such as Greenich Mean Time. Throughout the entire world this is standard and as such has been utilized as a time standard by other collaborative activities such as Amateur Radio.
Adapting to knowledge-sharing the whiteboard environment was also challenging. In the beginning, it was difficult to balance taking turns writing on the whiteboard so that each member's contribution was recorded. We also tend to prepare our statements prior to meeting such that we were throwing ideas together rather than sharing them actively. At week three, we've developed a new method of communication where we take turns contributing our thoughts. This method has made our discussion more active.
The VMT lounge and chat application interface is designed for utility and features. Extensive capabilities exist for implementation of a true Whiteboard experinece, yet the button and design style do not encourage users from exploring functionality. Furthermore, the style and feel of the application is reminiscent of a Windows 16 bit application, and contributes to a colloquially defined "clunky" interface.
Delayed tool tips or non-existent contextual help contribute to a feeling of helplessness in a new user. Help features of the VMT system could be improved by being closer to where the user needs help. Right-click on controls to access context menus that lead to help information will cause the help information to be more accessible. The user interface needs more intuitive controls that are more considerate of the user experience.
