June 2010 Edition
Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town
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People need social cues about the type of situation in which they find themselves and the type of behaviour with which they should respond. We also use social cues to assess those with whom we are interacting and how they perceive us. CSCW systems and applications vary in the level of contextual cues provided that enable users to appropriately frame their interactive behaviour. Many of the cues that are provided distort the resultant interaction. The three levels of social interaction issues previously mentioned (communication, environment / task factors and social, organisational and cultural norms) are used to assess the type of misconceptions that can arise out of distorted or non-existent CSCW system cues.
Image quality, camera angles or lost data during transmission (due to packet loss) may result in a perception of the user that they regard as inaccurate. Distorted images can make people look bored, angry or upset when this is not the case. A lack of feedback to those releasing the data about how it looks when received may also produce inaccurate assumptions about the interaction.
When interacting across temporal contexts as with asynchronous interactions the situational context (environment, conditions) may change during the task. This then means that some users may misinterpret the task they are collaborating on.
Lack of feedback in some CSCW systems, in synchronous interactions, can cause task state changes to go unnoticed or misinterpreted. This can cause a lack of task continuity for some of the users.
Collaborators may not share the same assumptions and beliefs. Cultures can be national, geographical, ethnic, social, educational, and organisational.
CSCW system design should ensure users awareness of interaction accessibility. There can be problems when users accidentally drift from private to public space/directory/conference, or if then are not aware what others can do with their data.
A publicly transmitted interaction that implies, by contextual cues, to people from one culture that it is private but implies to someone from another culture that this is a public interaction is likely to lead to an invasion of the former users’ privacy.
