Cooperative Interaction Techniques for Graphical Objects in a Collaborative Activity

An interactive puzzle-solving program was implemented in two versions both permitting two players to cooperate in solving the puzzle. In one version, the users were permitted not only to individually pick up and place pieces into the puzzle but also to jointly pick up and position pieces with synchronous cooperative control of the piece. In the other version, the synchronous cooperative control was disabled. We present the rationale for cooperative control, the design of the puzzle activities, the results of user testing, and displays of the interaction histories for the activities. We found that although the cooperative control of pieces was more difficult than individual control, half of the users preferred the cooperative control --a testimony to the added social value of cooperative controls in user interfaces. © Copyright by the authors, 1997. 1 Supported in part by NSF Grant MDR-9155709, the Washington Technology Center, Ark Interface II, and an NSF graduate fellowship.