Designing graspable groupware for co-located planning and configuration tasks

This paper shows some of the vital steps in the design process of a graspable groupware system. Activity theory is the theoretical foundation for our research. Our design philosophy is based on the tradition of Augmented Reality (AR), which enriches natural communication with virtual features. Another important part of our design philosophy is the use of coinciding action and perception spaces. We developed groupware for layout planning and configuration tasks called the BUILD-IT system. This system enables users, grouped around a table, to cooperate in the design manipulation of a virtual setting, thus supporting colocated, instead of distributed, interaction (Rauterberg et al., 1997a, 1997b, 1998; Fjeld et al., 1998a). The multi-user nature of BUILD-IT overcomes a serious drawback often seen with CSCW tools, namely that they are based on single-user applications (Grudin, 1988). We believe that co-location is an indispensable factor for the early stage of a complex planning process. Input and output, however, can be prepared and further developed off-line (Fjeld et al., 1998b), using any conventional CAD system.