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Research: Computer Science and HCI
Last update: Oct 2017
Publications
This web page includes abstracts of papers in reverse chronological order, together with links to the relevant publisher websites via DOIs.
As an alternative, you will find an automatically generated listing of publications on the University of Bath
University of Bath Research Portal
Papers
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Bingjie Yu and Leon Watts (2017)
'Designing Commenting Mechanisms for Dynamic Media: Synchronous Overlay and Adjacent Scrollable'. In:
ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems DIS2017 pp. 18-22.
Abstract:
Online interactions with dynamic media include both the content of media clips and comments, the latter expressing users' thoughts and attitudes towards media clips and one another. Effective interfaces must thus jointly support engagement with dynamic media as well with the viewpoints of others. In this paper, we report an experimental comparison of user interaction and engagement with two alternative designs for presenting comments on dynamic media: 'danmaku' Synchronous Overlay (SO) and Adjacent Scrollable (AS). Twenty participants each played two video clips of different political speeches, one with SO and the other with AS. Our findings suggest that when using SO participants felt a stronger sense of togetherness but remembered less about the comments than when using AS. We argue that commenting mechanisms are powerful elements of interaction design for making sense of others' opinions and feelings.
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Ryan Kelly, Daniel Gooch, Bhagi Patil and Leon Watts (2017)
Demanding by Design: Supporting Effortful Communication Practices in Close Personal Relationships.
Proceedings of The 20th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. pp 70-83.
Abstract:
The investment of effort into personal communication can be highly meaningful to people, and has particular significance for the mediation of close relationships. This paper presents qualities of effort investment that are seen to be valuable. Furthermore, we consider how these qualities might sensitise designers of communication technologies to the meaningfulness of effort. We report a qualitative study focusing on individual descriptions of meaningful effort invested into everyday correspondence. We encapsulate our findings in the form of five qualities that characterise valued effort: discretionary investment, personal craft, focused time, responsiveness to the recipient, and challenge to a sender's capacities. Drawing on ideas generated in brainstorming sessions, we present two illustrative concepts for new communication technologies, highlighting how our findings can guide the creation of designed artefacts.
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Ryan Kelly and Leon Watts (2017).
'
Slow but Likeable? Inefficient Robots as Caring Team Members
'
Paper presented at the
CSCW2017
Workshop on Robots in Groups and Teams.
Abstract:
This position paper discusses the notion of efficiency as a criterion for designing and evaluating the contributions that robots might make to human work teams. Participation in teams requires the coordination and prosecution of task-centric work activity but also requires the investment of caring social behavior as a distinctive kind of positive contribution to group interaction. Team spirit, emotional support, trust and reputation are all the outcome of such investments; they reinforce the capabilities of a team for particular joint activities, and contribute to its resilience over time. The requisite social behavior for these qualities of a team might be treated as a given in design considerations for human work teams. But the picture must change for human-robot teams: socially supportive behavior can only exist if it is explicitly designed in, and the consequent “task inefficiencies” are treated as a core part of the design equation. We draw on our own research on relational effort in social communication to offer some initial considerations about how task-inefficient action might be required for robots to engage in caring interactions with human collaborators.
-
Jekaterina Novikova and Leon Watts (2015).
'Towards Artificial Emotions to Assist Social Coordination in HRI'
International Journal of Social Robotics
February 2015, Volume 7, Issue 1, pp 77–88.
Abstract:
Coordination of human–robot joint activity must depend on the ability of human and artificial agencies to interpret and interleave their actions. In this paper we consider the potential of artificial emotions to serve as task-relevant coordination devices in human–robot teams. We present two studies aiming to understand whether a non-humanoid robot can express artificial emotions in a manner that is meaningful to a human observer, the first based on static images and the second on the dynamic production of embodied robot expressions. We present a mixed-methods approach to the problem, combining statistical treatment of ratings data and thematic analysis of qualitative data. Our results demonstrate that even very simple movements of a non-humanoid robot can convey emotional meaning, and that when people attribute emotional states to a robot, they typically apply an event-based frame to make sense of the robotic expressions they have seen. Artificial emotions with high arousal level and negative valence are relatively easy for people to recognise compared to expressions with positive valence. We discuss the potential for using motion in different parts of a non-humanoid robot body to support the attribution of emotion in HRI, towards ethically responsible design of artificial emotions that could contribute to the efficacy of joint human–robot activities.
-
Jekaterina Novikova, Leon Watts and Tetsunari Inamura (2015).
'Emotionally Expressive Robot Behavior Improves Human-Robot Collaboration'
24th International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication; IEEE RO-MAN2015, Kobe, Japan. 2015-08-31 - 2015-09-04. DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2015.7333645
.
Abstract:
In order to improve human-robot collaboration, it is necessary to consider how robots may be able to act in a way that is understandable to the people with whom they are working. This paper presents a preliminary experimental human-robot collaboration study with 10 human subjects. The paper analyzes the effect of a robot’s emotionally expressive non-verbal behavior on human-robot teamwork. The study was modeled and performed in the immersive simulator SIGVerse. The findings of the study reveal that embodied emotional expressiveness improves the integration of human-robot activity. The results of the study show that embodied expressiveness increases the duration of the activities that have a positive value for the collaborative task. The embodied expressiveness also has a significant influence on the distance between human-robot collaborators.
-
Ryan Kelly, Daniel Gooch and Leon Watts (2015).
'Is ‘Additional’ Effort Always Negative? Understanding Discretionary Work in Interpersonal Communications'
18th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, 2015-03-14 - 2015-03-18, Vancouver.
DOI: 10.1145/2685553.2699004
Abstract:
This paper describes a position on the meaning of effort in interaction design, particularly for communication systems. We make use of interview data to illustrate our ongoing research on how people invest discretionary effort when using communication technologies in personal relationships. Discretionary effort refers to work that, while arguably additional to the delivery of a message, is done to convey meaning to the participants in an interaction. We describe early findings that have the potential to extend current knowledge on the value of effort in communications.
-
Jekaterina Novikova, Leon Watts and Tetsunari Inamura (2015).
'Modeling Human-Robot Collaboration in a Simulated Environment'
In: 10th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction; HRI2015. Portland, Oregon. USA. 2015-03-02 - 2015-03-05.
DOI: 10.1145/2701973.2702035
Abstract:
In this paper, we describe a project that explores an open-sourced enhanced robot simulator SIGVerse towards researching a social human-robot interaction.
Research on high-level social human-robot interaction systems that include collaboration and emotional intercommunication between people and robots requires a considerable amount of data
based on embodied interaction experiments.
However, the cost of developing real robots and performing many experiments can be very high. On the other hand, virtual robot simulators are very limited in terms of interaction between simulated robots and real people.
Thus we propose using an enhanced human-robot interaction simulator SIGVerse that enables users to join the virtual world occupied by simulated robots through an immersive user interface.
In this paper, we describe a collaborative human-robot interaction task where a virtual human agent is controlled remotely
by human subjects to interact with an automatic virtual robot with implemented artificial emotional reactions.
Our project sets the first steps to explore the potential of using an enhanced human-robot interaction simulator to build socially interactive robots that can serve in educational, team building, and collaborative task solving applications.
-
Jekaterina Novikova, Gang Ren and Leon Watts (2015).
'It’s not the way you look, it’s how you move : validating a general scheme for robot affective behaviour'
15th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - INTERACT 2015, 2015-09-14 - 2015-09-18, Bamberg.
DOI: 10.1145/2685553.2699004
Abstract:
In the emerging world of human-robot interaction, people and robots will work together to achieve joint objectives. This paper discusses the design and validation of a general scheme for creating emotionally expressive behaviours for robots, in order that people might better interpret how a robot collaborator is succeeding or failing in its work. It exemplifies a unified approach to creating robot behaviours for two very different robot forms, based on combinations of four groups of design parameters (approach/avoidance, energy, intensity and fre- quency). 59 people rated video clips of robots performing expressive behaviours both for emotional expressivity on Valence-Arousal-Dominance dimensions, and their judgement of the successfulness of the robots’ work. Results are discussed in terms of the utility of expressive behaviour for facilitating human understanding of robot intentions and the design of cues for basic emotional states.
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Karen Rodham, Jeff Gavin, Neil Coulson and Leon Watts (2015).
'Co-creation of information leaflets to meet the support needs of people living with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) through innovative use of wiki technology'
Informatics for Health and Social Care. ISSN 1753-8157, posted online 24th Feb 2015.
doi:10.3109/17538157.2015.1008491
Abstract:
People living with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) experience frustration with the lack of knowledge and understanding of CRPS as a pain condition. This paper reports our attempt to tackle such frustrations by inviting some people who are living with CRPS, and who were taking part in a larger study, to co-construct a CRPS wiki page. A blank wiki page was set up for participants to populate with issues they felt needed to be raised and addressed. Through a process of collaborative writing, we anticipated that our participants would be able to progressively articulate and explain areas in which they had experienced the most difficulty.
The results of showed that participants did not engage with the wiki technology. We modified our procedure and completed an inductive analysis of a sister-forum that was used by our participants as part of the larger study. Six issues of importance were identified. We used the discussion forum threads to populate the themes. Due to a continued lack of engagement with the wiki technology, the team decided to create a suite of leaflets which were piloted with delegates at a CRPS patient conference.
Future work should be mindful of the extent to which patients are able and willing to share their experiences through such technology. Striking the balance between patient-endorsed and researcher-driven co-creation of such material is imperative.
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Jekaterina Novikova & Leon Watts (2014).
'A Design Model of Emotional Body Expressions in Non-humanoid Robots'
In Proceedings of HAI'14:The Second International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction
DOI:10.1145/2658861.2658892
Abstract:
Robotic emotional expressions could benefit social commu- nication between humans and robots, if the cues such expres- sions contain were to be intelligible to human observers. In this paper, we present a design framework for modelling emo- tionally expressive robotic movements. The results demon- strate that such expressions can encode basic emotional infor- mation, in that the parameters of the proposed design model can convey the meaning of emotional dimensions of valence, arousal and dominance. The framework thus creates a basis for implementing a set of emotional expressions that are ap- propriately adapted to contexts of human-robot joint activity.
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Jekaterina Novikova, Leon Watts & Joanna J Bryson (2014).
'
The Role of Emotions in Inter-Action Selection'
Interaction Studies, 15 (2), pp. 216-223
This is a commentary on an article by Faragó, Miklósi, Korcsok, Száraz and Gácsi, entitled
'Social behaviours in dog-owner interactions can serve as a model for designing social robots'.
Introduction:
Faragó et al (hereafter FMKS&G) draw attention to an important issue for researchers of
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI):
Can we conceive a scheme for making social robot behaviour
both comprehensible and appropriate in human social settings?
We agree with the authors concerning the potential utility of drawing on the example
of domestic animals — particularly dogs, the species with which we have the longest history
of co-evolution as social interactors. Here we seek to extend from the authors emphasis
on the detail of species-specific interaction to a general blueprint for robot action selection.
We particularly emphasise the integral role of emotions in facilitating social inter-action
selection as social signals of internal agent states that are relevant to joint action.
Our research questions concern the general abilities of artificial agents, particularly robots,
to express their current, transient internal states in ways that people find comprehensible
and acceptable. This requires that researchers consider not only the potential communicative
value of a social signal but also the validity or utility of the internal state which it describes.
Were it the case that the role of the human was to correctly identify a signal, as a passive
observer of the robot, it would be a simple matter to construct a repertoire of discriminable
social actions. However, this leads us to an important issue in HRI research not emphasised by
FMKS&G: the nature of interaction itself as a concept that requires simultaneous consideration
of the actors and the acted-upon. Dynamic selection decisions for emotional signalling must
depend on considerations that span human and robot: it is more reasonable to consider this
as a question of emotional inter-action selection..
Full text of the commentary is available here
-
Daniel Gooch & Leon Watts (2013).
'
Social Presence and the Void in Distant Relationships'
AI and SOCIETY: The
Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Communication
ISSN 0951-5666
DOI:10.1007/s00146-013-0492-9
Abstract:
In general terms, Social Presence is a feeling of togetherness regardless of spatial or temporal separation.
It is a socioemotional attitude that reflexively centres on other people, via perceptions of their affective attitudes towards oneself.
Communication technologies contribute to the maintenance of close personal relationships by facilitating welcome and timely socioemotional presence in the mind of an absent other.
Presence of this kind may be ‘in the moment’ of communication and also persist over time, as it is ‘topped up’ through repeated interactions.
In this paper, we consider how type of personal relationship and degree of physical separation might condition the Social Presence value of a range of media. We report ratings of Closeness and Social Presence that were gathered over 20 days by 64 participants about the close personal relationships that were meaningful to them. We contrast the communication media they chose to use across four relationship types and whether separations were in the same or in a different city. Our findings are used to discuss new ways of thinking about the connection between people who care about one another, and the meaning of the void that separates them, through the time course of Social Presence and Closeness experiences.
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Karen Rodham; Jeff Gavin; Neil Coulson; Leon Watts & Hannah Heath (2013).
'Let Me Introduce Myself: The Role of First Posts in Establishing a Common-Identity Community in an Online Support Forum'
In Proceedings of Conference on Psychology and Social Harmony (CPSH 2013) pp. 158-163.
ISBN: 978-1-61896-028-3
Abstract:
Research has shown that patient participation in online forums is potentially beneficial in terms of psychological support processes, especially by fostering the development of a positive group identity and selfvalidation. This is particularly relevant to patients with chronic pain conditions, such as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), who often experience a loss of identity associated with the negative changes to their daily activities and social life. The aim of this study is to explore the role of first posts in the development of a supportive online community. Thematic analysis identified five themes, all of which support the development of a common-identity community. The findings are discussed in relation to the development of support and implications for health professionals are outlined.
-
Jekaterina Novikova & Leon Watts (2013).
'
Artificial Emotions to Assist Social Coordination in HRI'
In Workshop on Embodied Communication of Goals and Intentions at the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) 2013
Abstract:
Human-Robot Interaction requires coordination strategies that allow human and artificial agencies to interpret and interleave their actions. In this paper we consider the potential of artificial emotions to serve as coordination devices in human-robot teams. We propose an approach for modelling action selection based on artificial emotions and signalling a robot’s internal state to human team member. We describe an architecture that drives the display of arti- ficial emotional gestures with a model latched internal emotional states. We also present preliminary data on human recognition rates for a candidate set of artificial emotional expressions in a Lego robot.
Download Here
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Daniel Gooch & Leon Watts (2012).
'YourGloves, HotHands and HotMits: Devices to hold hands at a
distance.'
In proceedings of
UIST2012, the 25th Annual CM Symposium
on User Interface Software and Technology,
Pages 157-166
DOI 8.1145/2380115.2380138
Abstract:
There is a growing body of work in HCI on the design of communication
technologies to help support lovers in long distance relationships. We
build upon this work by presenting an exploratory study of hand-holding
prototypes. Our work distinguishes itself by basing distance
communication metaphors on elements of familiar, simple co-located
behaviours. We argue that the combined evocative power of unique
co-created physical representations of the absent other can be used by
separated lovers to generate powerful and positive experiences, in turn
sustaining romantic connections at a distance.
-
Daniel Gooch & Leon Watts (2012).
'It's neat to feel the heat: how can we hold hands at a distance?'
In
CHI EA '12: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference extended abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts,
Pages 1535-1540
DOI: 10.1145/2212776.2223668
Abstract:
There is a growing body of work in HCI on the design of communication technologies to help support long distance relationships. We build upon this work by presenting three different prototypes based on hand holding. This distinguishes itself by basing distance communication metaphors on elements of co-located hand-holding actions. We then present an evaluation of the prototypes based on a three-phase interview process with 12 participants. We conclude by discussing the combined evocative power of unique physical metaphors and memories in fostering romantic connections at a distance.
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Daniel Gooch & Leon Watts (2011).
'Up Close and Personal: Social Presence in Mediated Personal Relationships'
In the Proceedings of
'BCS-HCI'11 Health, Wealth and Happiness', the 25th BCS Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
pp. 227-236.
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2305359
Abstract:
The likes of clarity and efficiency are good communication concepts for designers and evaluators of
business communication tools. They make little sense, however, when the design context of an interactive
system is the support of a personal relationship. What matters then is that people feel they are ‘there’
for one another. This paper describes a new way of understanding Social Presence in technologically
mediated communication by relating it to a well-established psychological relationship construct: Closeness.
We propose a model whereby an individual’s long-term feeling of Closeness to others is influenced by
communication events that are invested with a sense of Social Presence, as a function of the background
level of psychological Closeness. Thus each communicative act, and its associated feeling of Social
Presence, has an impact on the feeling of Closeness. We report a three-week-long study during which
18 participants reported daily ratings of Closeness, and communication-event ratings of both Closeness
and Social Presence. Our findings are consistent with the model we propose, suggesting that systems for
intimate relationships require consideration of both Social Presence and Closeness. We further consider
methodological and measurement issues in the realm of personal relationships, and the expanding remit of
HCI design as an active contributor to the world of experience and feelings.
-
Daniel Gooch & Leon Watts (2011).
'A Design Framework for Mediated Personal Relationship Devices'
In the Proceedings of
'BCS-HCI'11 Health, Wealth and Happiness', the 25th BCS Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
pp. 237-242
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2305316.2305360
Abstract:
Substantial numbers of people carry out intimate relationships at a
distance. These people have to utilise a variety of communication
technologies in order to maintain their relationship. Although a number
of communication technologies have been developed to help maintain an
emotional connection between remote couples, there has been no
comprehensive consideration of the design space that these technologies
are developed within. We present here a proposed design framework for
intimate communication devices. The intention is to highlight the
decisions designers have to make when coming up with new communication
systems and provide a more formalised system for considering the issues
involved.
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Daniel Gooch & Leon Watts (2011).
'The Magic Sock Drawer Project'
in
Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems ISBN: 978-1-4503-0268-5
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979613.
Abstract:
We describe the design of a intimate communication system, the Magic
Sock Drawer. The system allows close friends to send drawn or typed
digital notes to one another which are then automatically printed at the
other end. The system allows us to investigate a number of design
decisions that will have an impact on how communication systems create
feelings of closeness between remote partners. The four design concepts
explored include 1-to-1 communication, personalization, tangibility and
location. We present the results of a 6-week pilot study using the
system and the impact it has had on the study participants’
relationship.
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Patchareeporn Pluempavarn; Niki Panteli; Adam Joinson; Dawn Eubanks; Leon Watts; & James Dove (2011).
'Social Roles In Online Communities: Relations And Trajectories'
In MCIS 2011 Proceedings. Paper 47.
http://aisel.aisnet.org/mcis2011/47.
! Abstract:
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James Dove; Dawn Eubanks; Niki Panteli; Leon Watts & Adam Joinson (2011).
'Making an Entrance 2.0: The Linguistics of Introductory Success in Virtual Communities'
In Proceedings of the 44th Annual Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences, January 4-7, 2011, Computer
Society Press. ISBN: 978-0-7695-4282-9.
DOI: doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/HICSS.2011.290
Abstract:
Virtual communities depend on members, and more
specifically new members, for their lifeblood. To become a member of a
virtual community, one must introduce oneself to the group, and be
accepted as a member. We present here a series of two linguistic studies
investigating newcomer introductions in seven Web 2.0 online
communities. In the first study, we successfully developed a logistic
regression model that differentiates introductions from random messages
with 82.5% accuracy using 12 linguistic markers. In the second study we
correlated linguistic features of introductory messages with measures of
their success. Increased usage of 1st person singular pronouns and past
tense words in introductions was associated with greater success. Higher
levels of first person plural and present tense words in introductions
was associated with reduced success. Although these linguistic markers
have effect across groups, there is evidence to suggest that some
markers might vary between groups, depending on whether a dedicated
introductions subforum is provided.
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Daniel Gooch & Leon Watts (2010).
'Communicating Social Presence Through Thermal Hugs'
in the Proceedings of
SISSI2010, First Workshop on Social Interaction in
Spatially Separated Environments pp. 11-20, at UBICOMP'10
Abstract:
Social Presence is the concept of 'being there', of emotional connectedness to
another person. As relationships are increasingly formed by spatially disparate partners, supporting social presence has become more important. As
many intimate acts involve touching, this paper investigates the impact that
heat, one aspect of touch, has upon social presence. This is presented in the
form of a thermal hug. Our findings indicate that there was a significant difference
in terms of social presence between those that received thermal 'hugs'
and those that did not.
-
Matt Billings & Leon Watts (2010).
'
Understanding Dispute Resolution Online: Using Text to Reflect Personal and Substantive Issues in Conflict.
'
In the Proceedings of ACM CHI2010, Atlanta, GA, USA. pp. 1447-1456
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753542
Abstract:
Conflict is a natural part of human communication with
implications for the work and well-being of a community. It
can cause projects to stall or fail. Alternatively new insights
can be produced that are valuable to the community, and
membership can be strengthened. We describe how
Wikipedia mediators create and maintain a ‘safe space’.
They help conflicting parties to express, recognize and
respond positively to their personal and substantive
differences. We show how the ‘mutability’ of wiki text can
be used productively by mediators: to legitimize and
restructure the personal and substantive issues under
dispute; to actively and visibly differentiate personal from
substantive elements in the dispute, and to maintain
asynchronous engagement by adjusting expectations of
timeliness. We argue that online conflicts could be
effectively conciliated in other text-based web
communities, provided power differences can be controlled,
by policies and technical measures for maintaining special
‘safe’ conflict resolution spaces.
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John Collomosse, Graham McNeill & Leon Watts (2008)
'Free-hand Sketch Grouping for Video Retrieval'
ICPR2008 the 19th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, Tampa, Florida. USA. December 2008.
ISBN: 978-1-4244-2175-6
Abstract:
We present an algorithm for extracting object descriptions from free-hand sketches of remembered
scenes, drawn as video retrieval queries. Our sketches
depict scene content, as well as indicators of motion.
We report an exploratory study investigating how people
sketch to depict recalled events. We incorporate several
observations from this study into the design of a
novel sketch parsing algorithm. We draw upon a temporal
HMM classifier to recognise common pictograms,
and graph-cut to identify more general objects.
-
Matt Billings & Leon Watts (2007).
'
A safe space to vent: Conciliation and conflict in distributed teams.
' In Bannon et al. (eds.) ECSCW 2007
Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work,
Limerick, Ireland, 24-28 September 2007. Springer Verlag. pp. 139-138.
ISBN: 978-1-84800-030-8
Abstract:
This paper considers the nature of conflict in relation to the
environments within which distributed teams cooperate. Effective
conflict management can bring great benefits to distributed teams, while
inadequate conflict resolution strategies can incur significant personal
and resource costs. The increased geographical, cognitive and emotional
distances between members can stimulate and amplify conflict. Parties
may display disinhibited behaviour (flaming) or may be reluctant to
accept reconciliatory overtures (low trust). These factors can be
attributed to the impact of communication technology on social
structures that underlie interaction. Shifting to face-to-face meetings
can be impractical or involve prohibitive cost, so it is important to
establish how best to deal with conflict in technologically-mediated
settings. Dispute resolution practitioners (conciliators) have evolved
strategies and techniques to construct and regulate safe
spaces; settings that are conducive to finding creative solutions
to entrenched conflicts. Building on interviews with expert
conciliators, we discuss the potential for learning from the structure
and constraints of conciliation environments in order to improve
conflict management through technologies.
-
Matt Billings & Leon Watts (2006)
The Model of Relational Communication:
explaining difficulties encountered through the use of technology in alternative dispute resolution.
Presented at 8th Australian National Mediation Conference.
Hobart, Tasmania 2nd - 5th May 2006.
Abstract: With the ‘bandwidth problem’ all but eliminated and the cost of
hardware and software declining sharply, the time should be ripe for
the use of computer technologies in alternative dispute resolution
(ADR). However, many practitioners still appear reluctant to adopt
this technology. Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) research has
produced a body of evidence to suggest that the presence of technology
has a distorting effect on the way that people create and maintain
relationships. It is likely that this distortion restricts or skews
practitioner’s skills, and is responsible for the reluctance to use
computer technology in ADR. We distinguish between ‘active’ (human) mediation, in which
the mediator reflexively alters communication between parties, through
continual assessment of their impact on the existing relationship; and
‘passive’ (technological) mediation, which alters communication through
the medium’s inherent properties, regardless of context. It is this
paper’s contention that it is the interaction between these two forms
of mediation that is responsible for the difficulties that
practitioners encounter when attempting to mediate using computer
technology.
-
Carljohan Orre & Leon Watts (2006)
A Practical Sense of Knowing: Exploring Awareness Strategies in a Mobile Workplace.
In P. Hassanaly , T. Herrmann, G. Kunau and M. Zacklad (Eds.)
Cooperative Systems Design: Seamless Integration of Artifacts and
Conversations - Enhanced Concepts of Infrastructure for Communication
Volume 137 Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications.
Amsterdam: IOS Press. ISBN: 1-58603-604-1.
pp239-254.
Abstract: This paper presents and discusses strategies used by homecare
workers to establish and maintain awareness in a mobile workplace. It capitalizes
on data derived from a longitudinal translocal ethnographic study of homecare and
the utilization of mobile technology. The study exposes two distinct dimensions of
the work context, denoted the Case and Base dimensions, which are used as
vehicles to describe situations of collaborative practice that occur (1) in a
coordination meeting, (2) on a homecare visit, and (3) in an on-the-fly ‘illicit’ use
of mobile technology. We propose a new conception of collaborative awareness as
a 'practical sense of knowing'. Findings from the ethnographic study are consistent
with a well-worn distinction between “knowing that”, declarative knowledge, and
“knowing how”, procedural knowledge. Conventional structures of organizational
control, encoded both procedurally and as declarations of responsibility, are
routinely broken and reformed. This happens as workers devise new strategies in
order to maintain the keen sense of their collaborative situation required to sustain
an orderly workplace>
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Nicholas Ducheneaut and Leon Watts (2005)
In Search of Coherence: A Review of E-Mail Research.
Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 20, No. 1 & 2, Pages 11-48
LEA ISBN: 1-58603-363-8.
Abstract: E-mail research encompasses a vast and diverse body of work that
accumulated over the past 30 years. In this article, we take a critical
look at the research literature and ask two simple questions: What is
e-mail research? Can it help us reinvent e-mail? Rather than defining an
overarching framework, we survey the literature and identify three
metaphors that have guided e-mail research up to this day: e-mail as a
file cabinet extending human information processing capabilities, e-mail
as a production line and locus of work coordination, and, finally,
e-mail as a communication genre supporting social and organizational
processes. We propose this taxonomy so that designers of future e-mail
systems can forge their own direction of research, with knowledge of
other directions that have been explored in the past. As an illustration
of the possible future work we want to encourage with this review, we
conclude with a description of several guidelines for the reinvention of
e-mail inspired by our journey through the literature.>
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Dearden, A.; Walker, S. & Watts, L. (2005)
'
Choosing the right allies for critical computing',
In Olav W. Bertelsen, Niels Olof Bouvin, Peter G. Krogh & Morten Kyng (eds.)
Proceedings of the 4th decennial conference on Critical computing: between sense and sensibility, Aarhus, Denmark.
August 2005.pp.133-136.ACM Press.
-
Leon Watts, Yanuar Nugroho & Martin Lea (2003)
Engaging in Email Discussion: Conversational Context and Social Identity in Computer-Mediated Communication.
In G.W.M. Rauterberg, M. Menozzi and J. Wesson (Eds.)
Proceedings of INTERACT'03
Amsterdam: IOS Press ISBN: 1-58603-363-8. pp. 559-566.
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Leon Watts & Emmanuel Dubois (2001)
Managing Visibility in Ubiquitous Multimedia Communication Environments
People and Computers XV, Proceedings of the HCI'01 Conference, p.65-82.
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Nicholas Graham, Leon Watts, Gaelle Calvary, Joelle Coutaz, Emmanuel Dubois & Laurence Nigay (2000)
A Dimension Space for the Design of Interactive Systems Within their Physical Environments
Proceedings of DIS'00: Designing Interactive Systems p.406-416.
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Andrew Monk & Leon Watts (2000)
Peripheral Participation in Video-Mediated Communication
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies v.52 n.5 p.933-958.
Presentations
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Daniel Gooch & Leon Watts (2011).
'Understanding Social Presence'
in the Proceedings of
ISPR2011 - the Annual Conference of the International Society for Presence Research
Edinburgh, Scotland. October 26 – 28, 2011.
ISPR Proceedings Archive
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Daniel Gooch & Leon Watts (2011).
'YourGlove'
Poster presentation at
'HCI2011 Health, Wealth and Happiness', 25th BCS Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
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Billings, M. & Watts, L. (2007): Expanding the toolbox: computer-mediated communication and mediation practice
Presented at The Fifth UN Forum on Online Dispute Resolution, University of Liverpool, Liverpool. 19 - 20 April 2007.
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Billings, M. & Watts, L. (2007): How does computer-mediated communication change the way that we interact?
Presented at SET for Europe 2007, House of Commons, Westminster, London. 19 March 2007.
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Watts, L.A. & Reeves, A.J. (2006)
'
Identity, Understanding and Design of Communication Facilities in CSCW Systems.'
presented at the
workshop on Design and Computer Supported Cooperative Work
at the ACM CSCW 2006 Conference, Banff, Alberta, Canada. November 2006.
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Billings, M. & Watts, L. (2005): Conflict, conciliation and computers: how mediation may alter the perception of difference
Presented at Conflict Research Society Annual Conference, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield. 31 August - 2 September 2005
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Ramondt, L. & Watts, L.A. (2005)
'Sustainability through engagement: Contribution- and Progress-Oriented Strategies as Incentives for Participation.'
presented at Ellis, Halverson & Erickson's
Workshop on Sustaining Community: The role and design of incentive mechanisms in online systems
at the ACM
GROUP2005 Conference, Florida, USA. November 2005.
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Watts, L.A. & Reeves, A.J. (2004)
‘Managing Projections of
Identity in Technological Milieu’, in Workshop on Representations of
Digital Identity, ACM conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work,
CSCW’04, Chicago, USA. November 2004.
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