The Corner Office: An Exploration of an Informal Teleconferencing Service

The increasing number of geographically dispersed work teams present ever-increasing opportunities for new collaboration tools and services. Earlier this year, a geographically dispersed research team decided to prototype and informally evaluate an audio-only mediaspace, which was code-named The Corner Office. This prototype was built using an audio teleconferencing bridge augmented with web-based visual awareness information. A web browser was used to present a panel display that contained a small image of the desk and the doorway of each user. This allowed team members to determine when a colleague was at his or her desk, on the phone, alone, or with others. In addition, the desktop images were visually highlighted whenever someone was currently present in the shared audio space. The objectives of the field trial were twofold. First, to investigate the usability and usefulness of a lightweight audio-only media space. And second, to explore the benefits of augmenting an audio space with several types of social awareness information. The feedback from the trial users indicated that the social presence information was generally useful as a way to determine the conversation accessibility of another user. Conversely, communication inaccessibility was also clearly signaled through the Corner Office portals. During the field trial, the natural tension between social awareness and individual privacy surfaced. As a result, the trial members agreed to intentionally degrade the quality of the web camera images, which resulted in slightly blurred images with limited color. While it remained possible to determine when someone had a visitor, it became impossible to determine the visitor's identity. The images, therefore, provided useful but limited presence information, while at the same time providing an increased level of privacy for the trial users. The analyses of the usage logs for the Corner Office revealed considerable fluctuation in use from week to week, and generally lower than expected daily use. User feedback suggested that this might have been due to confusing interactions with the existing telephone equipment and call procedures. Social cues and norms to signal public versus private conversations were also slow to develop. In this paper, we will discuss the lessons learned from the Corner Office trial about the design of audio-only media spaces, the design of social awareness information, and the general implications for future collaborative communications services.