Supporting Informal Computer-Human Collaboration: the K22 Kiosk Platform

Spontaneous, informal gatherings among colleagues often spur greater exchanges of ideas than formal meetings. The K22 project aims to support these spontaneous collaborative interactions by embedding intelligent kiosks, small networked Intelligent Environments (IEs), in hallways, break rooms, and other informal meeting spaces. These kiosks will enable private capture and indexing of casual meetings, and permit access to relevant, context-sensitive information and agents in other IEs. This paper describes the K22 platform, and discusses challenges and design criteria associated with designing K22 applications.