3.5 The Collaborative Sketch
sketching to brainstorm, express ideas and mediate interaction
Sketching is not only something you do by yourself but, as mentioned in the previous chapter, is something you can do with others. As you will see shortly, the collaborative sketch you create serves a somewhat different purpose than sketches you do by yourself.
Before reading on, try this exercise. Get together with one or two others, and sit around a table with large sheets of paper on it. The paper should be large enough and the table small enough so that all can reach into the drawing area easily while still having room to do their sketching without interfering with each other. Now work together on the following design problem with your team for about 10-15 minutes. As you do this, try to observe yourselves: how you sketch as a team, and how you interact over the sketch. Now try continuing this exercise for another 10 minutes, but this time tape the paper to a wall (or use a whiteboard).
The Interactive Fridge
An appliance vendor is producing a refrigerator with a touch monitor and camera embedded in its front. The vendor wants you to design an interface where a person can create a shopping list on this monitor. The interface will allow that person to modify this list, print this list, email this list to others, and use the list as the basis for navigating to (and ordering from) web-based on-line shopping systems. The system will have software that can recognize product bar codes (although not perfectly), a database that you can populate with standard shopping items, and a touch sensitive display where menus and buttons can be selected.
Actions and Functions of Collaborative Sketching
From the above experience, you may have noticed that collaborative sketching is as much about group interaction around the sketch (e.g., brainstorming and commenting on each other’s ideas) as it is about producing a sketch. Indeed, the sketch itself as produced may have been less valuable than the conversations around it.
Let us relate your experiences with what we know about how groups generally collaborate while sketching.
Gestures: Sketching with Others
In 1991, John Tang studied small groups of people designing together – sketching – over large sheets of paper. He categorized every person’s activity according to what action and function it accomplished, as listed below.
• listing produces alpha-numeric notes that are spatially independent of the drawing;
• drawing produces graphical objects, typically a 2-dimensional sketch with textual annotations that are attached to the graphic;
• gesturing is a purposeful body movement that communicates specific information, e.g., pointing to an existing drawing.
• storing information refers to preserving group information in some form for later recall;
• expressing ideas involves interactively creating representations of ideas in some tangible form, usually to encourage a group response;
• mediating interaction facilitates the collaboration of the group, and includes turn-taking and focusing attention.
As seen above, Tang saw that collaborative sketching involves the drawing sketch, annotations and notes that are common with individual sketches, where its primary function is to produce a sketch that can be stored and retrieved later. However, Tang also saw a third basic element: gesturing. Gesturing, which is often overlooked as a collaborative sketching activity, comprised ∼35% of all actions, and was used by participants to express and enact ideas, to signal turn-taking, to mediate interaction, and to focus the attention of the group.
The reason this is important is that the sketching medium and how it is located in the group’s working area may or may not be conducive to gesturing or mediating their interactions.
For example, recall how you worked around the table. Tang noticed that people sitting around a large piece of paper on a table (e.g., as in the figure) tended to work, sketch and gesture simultaneously around it, as they can all reach into the sketch comfortably.
However, if the paper is taped to a whiteboard, bodies get in the way. As a result, one person may ‘lead’ the sketch with the other people observing and commenting on it from a distance. Some people may even sit away from the whiteboard. Instead of simultaneous interaction, turn-taking or even only one person acting as the ‘scribe’ is more likely. While seemingly small, these differences matter in collaborative sketching, as it will affect how people communicate and interact.
Other configurations will affect how people work together. For example, and as will be discussed in Chapter 3.6, using drawing software instead of pencil and paper can negatively affect engagement and simultaneous interaction. This is due to the single input device (the mouse), people’s unequal knowledge of the software tool, and time spent on those parts of the interface that are secondary to drawing (e.g., navigating screens, dialog boxes, selecting from menus and pallettes).