Large Interactive Public Displays: Use Patterns, Support Patterns, Community Patterns

Large displays have several natural affordances that should make it simple to support collaborative work. They are large enough to hold multiple work areas and are easy for a small group to see collectively. The BlueBoard is a large plasma display with touch sensing and a badge reader to identify individuals using the board. The onboard software acts as a thin client giving access to each participant’s content (e.g., home pages, project pages). The client also has a set of tools and mechanisms that support rapid exchange of content between those present. The overall design of the BlueBoard is one that is easily learnable (under 5 minutes), very simple to use, and permits novel uses for collaboration. Our initial field study revealed a number of social issues about the use of a large interactive display surface, yet indicated that a shared public display space truly has distinct properties that lends itself to sharing content. Extreme learnability & overall simplicity of design makes BlueBoard a tool for collaboration that supports intermittent, but effective use for side-by-side collaboration between colleagues.