During the last year we have been designing and studying a computer based tool intended to strengthen social group awareness within a research laboratory. While awareness has been a subject of previous research it is still unclear how it should be conceptualized and how it can be provided for a CSCW system. In order to investigate this, and hence to attempt to create a system that would gain acceptance in the user community, we have been using a mixture of user-centered and participatory design methods. This paper presents the design process, the resulting system as well as users' comments on it. Based on all this, issues related to awareness are discussed and ideas for further studies are suggested.
We present the initial stages of a project in which we focus on participatory design methods to build information and communication technology support that stimulate knowledge sharing in a group of geographically distributed teachers. Teachers in general spend most of their time in a classroom leaving few opportunities for social encounters and chats with their colleagues. The prototype we are developing focuses on informality and playfulness, that would increase the social communication and thereby the community feeling. In turn, this would ultimately increase learning among the setting members.
Technology has often been utilized to address the needs of specific communities. Understanding how technology could be incorporated into solutions for sustainable tourism is a particularly interesting design challenge. This paper describes how we tried to meet such a challenge in an effort to help the residents of Split, Croatia enter into a dialogue with their local authorities about how to develop sustainable tourism within the specific socio-political constraints of their region.
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