TECNICAS DE PROCESAMIENTO DE DATOS

Do not show unnecessary files. The need for a higher level of abstraction is

mentioned by the group on several occasions. One user is using an example based on his experience of downloading films and email attachments:

’Hmm document files, but generally in the downloads folder you have all the email downloads. When you see an email, you download the attachment that time and then you re-download it. You don’t need it there. You have the same file many times’

This can generally be applied to the support of collaborative activities. It is not necessary to have access to an actual file in a file hierarchy if it can be available as part of a selection of relevant assets. One user:

’As much as I can I try to set up a “Favourites” folder, and then as try to locate inside that folder.’

As much as possible, provide a way for users to gather their documents in a shared folder, or use available metadata such as tags to identify which content is relevant to the session.

Do not give access to the whole network. Users need a more humanly

understandable way to know who they are sending content or sharing screen with. Corporate networks are usually very large, and the visibility of other computers is based on families of IP addresses.

It would be metaphorically easier to identify if it were not network names. To me, I just look at that and I think “Dah”.

All devices have network names or IP addresses. Sharing content to a device should not go through the process of using a network name or an IP address. There needs

to be a way to curate which devices and users are relevant. Instead of giving access to the enterprise’s whole Active Directory, have people join a session specific to the activity they are working on. Instead of giving access to the whole corporate network, technologies such as Bluetooth and local ad-hoc networks can be used to create a hardware-based proximity “shroud”.

Locating a device or a screen through with a certain level of abstraction requires the handling a large amount of metadata: what is a friendly name for the device? Does the system know who is the owner and who is user currently logged in? If not, as a fall back, is there a way to represent the device in its physical form rather than its more abstract IP address? Apple’s macOS does this, if other Macs are connected to the network, it represents them with an icon reflecting the exact model of Mac computer. Can this type of metadata be made available on a broader type of platforms in order to make the user experience easier?

4.7.5 “Plug-and-Play” Configuration

Provide activity presets for configurations. An example of systems that currently

complex to set up is the ICE. It is configured via a video and audio matrix controlled via a Crestron system. The system offers full flexibility as to which screen displays which source etc., however some combinations are rarely used. Configuration is a necessity and can be time consuming. One interviewee:

’you want it to work easily and efficiently well. you don’t want to spend half the meeting setting it up’

4.7.6 Discussion

The draft principles previously discussed give an indication of a direction of travel for the design of future co-located device ecologies. However, they need to be handled with a number of caveats.

They need to be evaluated against several implementations to be refined, most likely more implementations than within the scope of this research project. Additionally, their validity beyond the parameters of this study would also need to

be tested: although the focus group method was chosen for its ability to generate ideas quickly, there is a risk of biased requirements.

A number of additional considerations did not appear prominently in the study, e.g. security considerations, data governance etc, but they do need to be addressed in the context of a live system that would potentially handle sensitive information, as can be commonplace in an enterprise environment.

4.8 Gap Analysis

After establishing the meeting journey, the next step was to analyse a selection of existing software packages against the activities of the meeting journey and the design principles to establish what possible gaps are present in a current offering of collaborative software.

The selection of software was based on a mix of tools easily available in a corporate environment or some commercial software solutions used for tasks (like screen sharing etc.)

Table 4 software packages studied in the gap analysis

Name of Package

Publisher Purpose Similar products

Airdrop Apple Inc. Wireless device-to-device file transfers

Pushbullet

AirPlay+ AirServer

Apple Inc. + App Dynamic

Wireless screen sharing to an AppleTV or a PC equipped with AirServer.

Miracast, Chromecast.

Skype Microsoft Video conference, VoIP, and instant messaging client.

Google Hangouts, Apple Facetime + iMessage etc. Solstice Mersive Multi-screen sharing server Clickshare etc.

The data was gathered into two spreadsheets summarising the points reviewed in the checklist. A number of points can be identified:

4.8.1 Sessions

There are different ways to join sessions: a username and password combination, open sessions or invitations. Solstice offers different other options: password, passcode or approval handshake.

With the notable exception of Airplay and Airdrop, most reviewed packages enable a form of collaborative session. Sessions for real-time collaboration are already in place, however they generally don’t support the notion of longitudinal activity, in the sense that Activity-Based Computing did (Bardram, 2005). Unlike ReticularSpaces (Bardram, Gueddana, et al., 2012) previously, this study’s goal is not to replace applications and processes but instead to provide software facilities to support the use of current applications and processes in the context of real-time, multi-channel collaborative ecologies.

4.8.2 Abstraction

Most internet-based products studied (GoToMeeting, Skype etc.) have a user- centric interface, i.e. they connect users rather than devices. For example, when one is using Skype to initiate a screen-sharing session or a file transfer, this happens from a user to a user. Users can be connected to the service using different devices (e.g. mobile, PC) at the same time and the user interface is agnostic to that fact. Airplay and Airdrop use a device-centric approach; however, they follow clear naming conventions.

A recommendation would be to keep using a user-centric approach for the identification of other devices, and only use the device names in case of ambiguity. The reviewed applications follow this logic, however one dimension is not considered: they all give access to full file and operating systems. Alternatively, the applications could be “guided” to only have access to the assets, documents and devices relevant to the activity. Users could bypass this restriction only if they really need to. This could be supported by the longitudinal collaborative session previously discussed, which could point applications to a certain set of documents, users and devices without altering them or the processes in use.

4.8.3 Configuration

The reviewed packages offer different networking approaches:

• AirPlay and Solstice require the configuration and opening of specific firewall ports to allow network traffic to flow. This can be a problem in some corporate networks where security policies are to close all ports at firewall level. These systems can be deployed in specific environments with their own sub-networks, such as meeting rooms, however it is less easy to create ad-hoc deployments of those technologies if there are corporate-level firewall restrictions.

• AirDrop offers a different approach: it detects nearby devices based on their Bluetooth signal. It then creates a one-off Wi-Fi connection between those devices to perform a file transfer. It was possible to transfer a file between a Mac and an iPhone even though the former was not connected to a Wi-Fi network. It was connected to the network via Ethernet instead. Miracast (Wifi Alliance, n.d.) is using a similar system to enable screen sharing sessions.

Users should not have to deal with networking considerations other than connecting their devices to a Wi-Fi or wired network. Bypassing the network completely is not a good idea, however, as it may cause issues with access to enterprise resources or the internet. One of the recommendations would be to create breakout sub-networks in spaces designated for collaborative work using device ecologies, however if this is not possible, another alternative is to make use of technologies that can use standard network ports as much as possible.