Being Able to Join in More: The Co-Space Project

The OU and Mitsubishi have been carrying out a successful project to explore how novel interactive surfaces can be designed and used by co-located groups to enhance collaboration and interaction with digital information and physical artefacts.

Most of us have experienced a degree of frustration when trying to collaborate with others in a meeting while using a single PC. While it is possible for all to view the information being displayed on the screen it is much more difficult for all to interact with it. Typically, one person is in control of the computer, via a single mouse and keyboard, while the others look on. With funding from Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL), Professor Yvonne Rogers and her research team at the OU have been experimenting with a state-of-the-art interactive tabletop, DiamondSpin, donated by MERL. This shared touch surface allows multiple people to interact with projected digital information at the same time, by using capacitive sensing to track the position of multiple users’ hands. We have found the tabletop to be effective at facilitating group decision-making and planning. A number of applications have been developed including photo sharing and physical layout design and there are a number of publications either available or in press.

Contact: Prof. Yvonne Rogers: y.rogers@open.ac.uk
web link: http://mcs.open.ac.uk/pervasive