| dc.description.abstract | Tables have been used for working and studying for years, and people continue using tables to work
with digital artifacts. Collaborative tabletop activities such as planning, designing, and scheduling are
common on traditional tables, but digital tables still face a variety of design issues to facilitate doing
the same tasks. For example, due to the high cost of digital tables, it is unclear how large a digital
table must be to support collaborative problem solving.
This thesis examines the impact of physical features, in particular the table size, on collaborative
tasks. This research leverages findings of previous studies of traditional and digital tables, and
focuses on exploring the interaction of table size and users’ seating arrangement in collaborative
problem solving. An experimental study is used to observe the behaviors of two-member groups
while doing problem-solving tasks. Two tasks, storytelling and travel planning, were selected for this
study, and the experiments were performed on two traditional tables, one small and one large.
Although working on digital and traditional tables differs, investigating the impact of physical
features in traditional tables can help us better understand how these features interact with workspace
awareness and external cognition factors during taskwork.
In the empirical study, external cognitive behaviors of participants were deeply analyzed to
understand how physical settings of the table and seating arrangement affect the way people
manipulate artifacts in the table workspace. Collaborators passed through different stages of problem
solving using varied strategies, and the data analysis revealed that they manipulated material on the
tabletop for understanding, organizing and solution making through visual separation, cognitive
tracing and piling. Table size, task type and user seating arrangement showed strong effects on the
external cognition of collaborators. In particular, the accessibility of sufficient space on the table
influenced how much users could distribute their materials to improve workspace awareness and
cognitive tracing. On the other hand, lack of space or inaccessible space forced people to use the
space above the table—by holding materials in their hands—or to pile materials to compensate for
space limitations.
The insights gained from this research inform design decisions regarding size and seating
arrangement for tabletop workspaces. For cases in which there is insufficient space, design
alternatives are recommended to improve accessibility to artifacts to compensate for space
limitations. These solutions aim to enhance the external cognition of users when space is insufficient
to work with artifacts in problem-solving tasks. | en |
