Collaboration in performance of physical tasks

Robert E. Kraut, Mark D. Miller, Jane Siegel
1996 Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW '96  
We report an empirical study of people using mobile collaborative systems to support maintenance tasks on a bicycle. Results show that field workers make repairs more quickly and accurately when they have a remote expert helping them. Some pairs were connected by a shared video system, where the video camera focused on the active workspace and they communicated with full duplex audio. For other pairs, either the video was eliminated or the audio was reduced to half duplex (but not both). Pairs'
more » ... success at collaboration did not vary with the communication technology. However, the manner in which they coordinated advice-giving did vary with the communication technology. In particular, help was more proactive and coordination was less explicit when the pairs had video connections. The results show the value of collaboration, but raise questions about the interaction of communication media and conversational coordination on task performance.
doi:10.1145/240080.240190 dblp:conf/cscw/KrautMS96 fatcat:ywfao35hkfgnxfh47ybcyb475i