Between Initial Familiarity and Future Use: A Case of Collocated Collaborative Writing

This paper reports on a design experiment in an art gallery, where we explored visitor practices of commenting on art, and how they were shaped in interaction with a newly designed collocated, collaborative writing technology. In particular we investigate what potentials previous practices carry with them that may affect early use and further development of use. We base our analyses on interviews in the art gallery and on socio-cultural theories of artefactmediated learning and collaboration. The analyses help identify three forms of collaborative writing, which are placed in the space between future use possibilities and initial familiarity based on everyday practices. These forms met and at times collided in a space where the actual use was shaped. We furthermore look back on initial assumptions made in design regarding a productive collaborative writing style, and confront these with the three above forms of practice. The initial familiarity leads to two different early practices that get in the way of each other, and the collaborative writing idea. They point instead towards a discursive sharing of individual feelings, a different kind of past experiences than anticipated in design.