Building Better Design Teams: Enhancing Group Affinity to Aid Collaborative Design

This paper discusses ConvoCons, a novel system of conversational icons intended to encourage affinity between collaborators unobtrusively. Using a reification of Bonnie Nardi’s framework for social connection and affinity, ConvoCons overlay an existing application and display varying media that can encourage collaborating partners to begin developing affinity through informal conversations. This research explores whether dyads working on a collaborative multitouch application with ConvoCons develop more affinity than dyads that do not while solving simple design problems and a freeform design task. Results indicate that after an average of 23.25 minutes, affinity, defined as a function of conversational and behavioral cues, was 40% higher (p < 0.001) in the ConvoCons group than in the control group. This research offers a framework for evaluating affinity within groups and a foundation for exploring software-based methods of improving the effectiveness of collaboration within design teams.