Project view IM: a tool for juggling multiple projects and teams

Previous research suggests working on multiple projects may lead to stress and misallocation of attention. A modest redesign of Instant Messenger (IM) could help team members juggle multiple projects and teams. This paper describes the implementation of this redesign--an IM plug-in called Project View IM (PVIM). PVIM uses automatic project status logging to show active projectrelated files and team members. In a preliminary evaluation experiment, participants working collaboratively with different partners on two projects found PVIM and IM to be equally usable and informative but PVIM participants reported less workload stress. We discuss future work to iterate the design and measure allocation of attention and task performance. Categories & Subject Descriptors: H5.3. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Group and organizational interfaces - collaborative computing, computer-supported collaborative work. General Terms: Experimentation, Human Factors.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Peter Scupelli, Sara B. Kiesler, Susan R. Fussell, Congrui Chen
• Keywords: CHI 2005, Computer-supported Collaborative Work, Human Computer Interaction, Multiple Projects, Redesign--an Im Plug-in