Does ÔroomwareÕ matter? Investigating the role of personal and public information devices and their combination in meeting room collaboration

We report about an empirical study that investigates the role of different "roomware" configurations on the products and processes of meeting room collaboration. The configurations were realized by different combinations of providing computers and a large interactive electronic whiteboard. In this study, 48 subjects working in teams of four were assigned to three experimental conditions: four workstations networked and mounted in the table (WS), a LiveBoard (LB), and a networked combination of computers and LiveBoard (WS+LB). The results show that the teams in the WS+LB condition produced better quality work, in particular, generating more ideas than in the other two conditions. They also employed a more effective distribution of different cooperation modes.