ACTIVE MAP: A Visualization Tool for Location Awareness to Support Informal Interactions

ACTIVEMAP is a visualization tool that enables users to gain greater awareness of the location of people in their workplace environment, increasing each person’s ability to seek out colleagues for informal, face-to-face interactions. Our initial implementation of the tool places images of each person’s face on a map of the building. We have explored variations on how to best represent a range of features: the “freshness” of location information, groups of people in a single office, and the movement of people throughout the environment. We describe the context of the environment in which the tool is used, the features embodied in this tool, variations we have implemented for representing location and movement information, and some potential extensions for future versions of the tool.