Correlations between Cooperative Human Behaviours and Collaboration Technologies

Abstract

Parallel to the growth of Information and Communication Technologies, various tools have been built to support users’ needs during collaborative activities. However, without proper understanding of relationships between technologies and human behaviours, tools used could also degrade the overall collaboration outcome. This thesis aims to provide the appropriate knowledge by developing taxonomies of collaborative tools and user behaviours. Then, the relationships exist between them were examined by providing examples from the literature. Two empirical studies were also carried out to test the taxonomies built and to guide the experimental process that enable investigation of relationships between them. Findings from these investigations suggest three key types of user behaviours; mental, physical and social behaviours. As for the taxonomy of hardware tools, the different characteristics of displays and input device are the key points identified. As for the taxonomy of software tools (user interface), features of visual, auditory, haptic, olfactory and multimodal user interface were identified. Two empirical evaluations were also carried out to investigate the effective design of collaborative tools in two scenarios: distance learning environment and application of categorical notification system. In conclusion, this thesis presents the processes and findings obtained during investigations on the correlations between the different features of software/hardware tools and collaborative user behaviours. The investigations aimed to provide system designers with deeper understandings of those areas mentioned so that better design selections could be made.