Designing GroupWear: Weaving Silicon Threads into the Social Fabric

This paper explores the design of a new type of name tag— a GroupWear tag—that is capable of displaying information related not simply to an individual, but rather to an interaction between two people (for example, a measure of how much they have in common). These GroupWear tags are discussed as an instance of “thin-layer” social technology: social technology that does not serve as the dominant medium for communication, but rather that creates a thin layer of information to augment face to face interactions at a social gathering. The “Social Computing Interface” challenges that are raised by attempting to design such a thin layer of technology are discussed in detail, including how to keep the technology from obscuring the underlying group dynamics, and how to keep the thin layer of information in close alignment with the social context.