MyTeam: Availability Awareness Through the Use of Sensor Data

This paper reports on a four-week study of the usage of myTeam, a prototype that provides availability awareness for distributed work groups through the use of sensor data. Automatically detected information such as presence or absence in office, network connection, mouse and keyboard activity is conveyed along with optional user-added information such as “gone for the day”, or “do not disturb”. The information allows visualization of the availability of colleagues, and supports selection of the best mode for communication for the given context. The results of the study are reported to inform the design of future availability awareness systems.