Interfaces in organizations (panel session): supporting group work

Research on human factors in computer systems has emphasized supporting individuals. This panel will discuss new issues that emerge when computer systems support groups of people and whole organizations. Malone (see following paper) will suggest a broadening of the definition of user interfaces to include “organizational interfaces” and will indicate how a theoretical base for such an endeavor might be developed. Then Cashman will describe a “coordinator tool” in use at DEC for tracking the assignment of tasks to people in activities such as software maintenance. Finally, Brown will suggest how computer systems can be designed to radically increase the bandwidth of cooperation in groups by, for example, exploiting linguistic notions of context.