Technology for supporting informal communication in multimedia conferencing systems

Abstract: This dissertation presents work on designing multimedia conferencing systems that better support informal communication among groups. In this case the term “informal” refers to the ability of the system to support unplanned communication and side conversations between members of the group. This contrasts from the classical goal of video-conferencing systems, which was to support room-to-roommeetings between participants at scheduled intervals. The work in the dissertation includes problems related to computer communication and human computer interaction in order to achieve this goal. More specifically, work in the field of computer communication is presented on how to design multimedia systems that use available network resources more efficiently so that a larger number of end users can be supported. This problem of scalability is important when trying to support informal communication because the room-to-room model of deployment is viewed as the primary reason why classical conferencing systems could not support side conversations between participants. Thus, while it may be an option to pack a large number of participants into a few conferencing rooms for a formal meeting, informal communication is better achieved when each participant can join from their own conferencing client. Other work in the field of human computer interaction deals with various usability issues related to improving the flow of unplanned communication. This includes work on the visualization of file systems in order to make it easier for users to locate shared files when coordination and planning on the structure of the file system has not taken place. It also includes user studies that focus on identifying new requirements and new design goals for supporting spontaneous communication. In addition, some interdisciplinary work is also included that seeks to make it easier to unify research in computer communication and human computer interaction so that network resources may be allocated to the various functions in these applications while giving the user the most benefit. A variety of methods are used to investigate the problems including the design and testing of prototypes and algorithms and studies of users in laboratory and naturalistic settings.