Current Research Projects
I am currently working on several projects, including: the value of shared visual spaces for coordinating and facilitating communication, the exploration of large scale displays, and understanding information technology and its implications in real world environments. The following sections provide a brief description of the research and provide links to representative samples of the work.
The Impact of Shared Visual Information
on Collaborative Performance
The primary goal of this research is to understand more completely the role that shared visual information plays in both face-to-face and mediated communications. I'm particularly interested in how visual information interacts with language and provides critical information to support discourse.
- Gergle, D., Kraut, R.E., and Fussell, S.R. (2006). The Impact of Delayed Visual Feedback on Collaborative Performance. In Proceedings of CHI 2006, pp. 1303-1312. [PDF]
- Gergle, D., Kraut, R.E., and Fussell, S.R. (2004). Language Efficiency and Visual Technology: Minimizing Collaborative Effort with Visual Information. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 23(4), pp. 491-517. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. [PDF]
- Gergle, D., Kraut, R.E., and Fussell, S.R. (2004). Action as Language in a Shared Visual Space. In Proceedings of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2004), pp. 487-496. New York: ACM Press. [PDF]
- Kraut, R.E., Gergle, D., and Fussell, S.R. (2002). The Use of Visual Information in Shared Visual Spaces: Informing the Development of Virtual Co-Presence. In Proceedings of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2002), pp. 31-40. New York: ACM Press. [PDF]
Mediated Communication Environments
The Value of Persistence in Text Chat
Work performed with David E. Millen while a summer intern at IBM T.J. Watson Research in Cambridge, MA working in the Collaborative User Experience (CUE) Group. Studies examine how media communication tools support collaboration among geographically distributed workers. The results of the studies identified important media by task differences and underscored the benefit of short-term persistence as a coordination device to support grounding and collaborative communication in complex activities. In addition to the studies, we developed a series of design guidelines and implications for systems to support distributed work.
- Gergle, D., Millen, D., Kraut, R.E., and Fussell, S.R. (2004). Persistence Matters: Making the Most of Chat in Tightly-Coupled Work. In Proceedings of CHI 2004, pp. 431-438. New York: ACM Press. [PDF]
Trust in Mediated Environments
Joint work with Nathan Bos and Judy Olson investigating the development of trust in video-mediated communication environments. We found that trust developed more swiftly in video-mediated environments than other mediated conditions.
- Bos, N., Olson, J.S., Gergle, D., Olson, G.M., and Wright, Z. (2002). Rich Media Helps Trust Development. In Proceedings of CHI 2002, pp. 135-140. New York: ACM Press. [PDF]
- Bos, N., Gergle, D., Olson, J.S., and Olson, G.M. (2001). Being there versus seeing there: Trust via video. In Proceedings of CHI 2001, Extended Abstracts (Seattle WA, March 2001), New York: ACM Press, 291-292. [PDF]
Interruptions in Context
Joint work with Daniel Avrahami, Scott Hudson and Sara Kiesler. We have developed and run a study investigating the situational aspects surrounding interruptions and cell phone use. We developed an online scenario-based study to explore the role of context on perceived interruption.
- Avrahami, D., Gergle, D., Hudson, S., and Kiesler, S. (In Press). Improving the Accuracy of Cell Phone Interruptions: A Study on the Effect of Contextual Information on the Behavior of Callers. To appear in Behaviour and Information Technology. [Email for pre-print]
Large Scale Displays
Joint work with Desney Tan, Peter Scupelli and Randy Pausch. We have been exploring the performance issues surrounding users of large scale displays (e.g., wall-size projection displays). We have a series of papers demonstrating performance benefits of large-scale displays in comparison to desktop size displays. We suspect this benefit is due in part to the facilitation large-scale displays play in biasing users towards an egocentric strategy for these tasks which allows better performance on spatial orientation tasks, path-integration tasks, and 3D navigation.
- Tan, D., Gergle, D., Scupelli, P., and Pausch, R. (2006). Physically Large Displays Improve Performance on Spatial Tasks. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (ToCHI), Vol 13(1), pp. 71-99. New York: ACM Press.
[PDF]
- Tan, D., Gergle, D., Scupelli, P., and Pausch, R. (2004). Physically Large Displays Improve Path Integration in 3D Virtual Navigation Tasks. In Proceedings of CHI 2004, pp. 439-446. New York: ACM Press.
[PDF]
- Tan, D., Gergle, D., Scupelli, P., and Pausch, R. (2003). With Similar Visual Angles, Larger Displays Improve Spatial Performance. In Proceedings of CHI 2003, pp.217-224. New York: ACM Press.
[PDF]
Website Design and Usability
Together with Tom Brinck and Scott D. Wood, we developed a systematic usability process for web design. This work resulted in several years of tutorial presentations that culminated in the completion of a book on usability in website design.
- Brinck, T., Gergle, D., and Wood, S. (2001). Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
- Gergle, D., Brinck, T., and Wood, S. (1999). Practical usability methods in website design. Tutorial at CHI 99 - Human Factors in Computing Systems, Pittsburgh, PA, May 1999.
- Gergle, D., Brinck, T., and Wood, S. (1999). Invited tutorial at User Interface 99, San Francisco, CA, April 1999.
- Gergle, D., Brinck, T., and Wood, S. (1999). Invited tutorial at BAYCHI, Santa Clara, CA, Dec 1999.
- Brinck, T., and Gergle, D. (1998). The design of banking websites: Lessons from iterative design. APCHI 98: Asia Pacific Computer Human Interaction, 386-391, Kanagawa, Japan, July 1998.
- Brinck, T., Gergle, D., and Wood, S. (1998). Website design from the trenches. Tutorial at CHI 98 - Human Factors in Computing Systems, Los Angeles, CA, April 1998.
- Brinck, T., Gergle, D., and Wood, S. (1998). Invited tutorial at User Interface 98, Boston, MA, October 1998.
