Investigating the Impact of Physical Table Design on Collaboration

Members Involved:

• Sepinood Gashti

• Stacey Scott

As interactive tabletop systems become commercially available, questions remain regarding the appropriateness of different design characteristics for different tasks and user settings. A key open issue, which has ramifications for commercial production and deployment, relates to the appropriateness of different table sizes for different tasks and user contexts. Little is known of how these differences impact spatial behavior in a shared workspace. In order to develop appropriate user interfaces for digital work spaces for various tasks and usage situations, it is important to clarify the user interaction requirements for these situations.

This research has proposed to investigate how people behave during tabletop activities, by focusing on the effect of the size of table and how people divide the space for different purposes. The result of this work directly impact on interface design on tabletop technology.