A direct touch table-top display as a multi-user information kiosk: Comparing the usability of a single display groupware either by a single user or people cooperating as a group q Mehmet Ilker Berkman a,⇑ , Adem Karahoca b a Bahcesehir University, Faculty of Communication, Besiktas, Istanbul 34353, Turkey b Bahcesehir University, Faculty of Engineering, Besiktas, Istanbul 34353, Turkey article info Article history: Received 30 May 2011 Received in revised form 29 June 2012 Accepted 9 July 2012 Available online 27 July 2012 Keywords: Single display groupware (SDG) Direct touch table-top display (D3TD) Group interaction Usability Multi-user Information kiosk abstract This study aimed to investigate the usability of a direct touch table-top display (D3TD) application that was designed to be used as a multi-user information kiosk (MUIK). We examined its use by either a single person or multiple user groups to determine the effect of people cooperating as a group on its usability. We compared both groups’ user performance and usability survey results. A one-way MANOVA of overall usability metrics emphasised a significant difference between the groups. Given the significance of the overall test, examining the univariate main effects revealed that the difference between the groups arose in the earlier system use stages due to differences in the success rate. There was no difference in the task completion time between the groups. Participants in the multiple user group achieved a higher task com- pletion rate in the first phase and lower error rates in the following steps. However, the usability survey results did not reveal a significant difference between the groups. We observed that users working on the same individual task tended to help each other when working in a multi-user environment. These mutual aids occurred mostly in the earlier stages, influencing the users’ performance. The results show that a D3TD has a potential to enhance usability in terms of effectiveness when deployed as a MUIK. Ó 2012 British Informatics Society Limited. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Information kiosks became widespread in public spaces world- wide to supply information on a specific subject for the needs of single users. Although the growth of the Internet has reduced their popularity and importance, information kiosks have survived as devices supplying contextual information related to their location (Slack and Rowley, 2002). We developed a multi-user system on a direct touch table-top display (D3TD) as an information kiosk. The design was based on kiosk systems being placed at public places where potential users have similar information needs. Multiple users who gather around a multi-user information system may interact and cooperate with each other, potentially improving information kiosk usability. Isenberg et al. (2010) stated the goals of large horizontal infor- mation displays in public spaces as ‘‘...attracting people’s atten- tion, promoting lightweight information exploration, some reflection on the presented data, and/or active discussion of this data with peers’’. Jacucci et al. (2010) reported positive attitudes regarding the social capacity of public multi-touch displays. In this study, we argue that a multi-user single display is likely to enhance information kiosk usability through group cooperation and that so- cial interaction may be created by sharing and discussing the information. Single display groupware (SDG), defined as ‘‘...multiple users operating on the same screen simultaneously’’ (Stewart et al., 1999), is offered as an alternative to traditional remote collabora- tion. Working systems based on the SDG concept must await the technological developments to allow large direct touch display sys- tems (interactive tables) to become widely available. Shen et al. (2006) emphasised the three potential benefits of interactive ta- bles. The first benefit is that the screen is an I/O (input/output) de- vice into which ‘‘...natural hand gestures and intuitive manipulations’’ can be input. This reduces the user’s cognitive load and enhances interaction fluidity. As people tend to gather around a table for face-to-face interaction, the second benefit of a horizon- tal table-top surface is that it provides opportunities for collocated collaborative interaction. The third benefit comes from the large display areas, which provides users with an external physical memory and a cognitive medium for new forms of visual represen- tation and direct manipulation. Considering these benefits, D3TDs can be used conveniently as multi-user information kiosks (MUIKs) in public places. Informa- tion kiosks must readily provide information and in a short time. 0953-5438/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 British Informatics Society Limited. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2012.07.002 q This paper has been recommended for acceptance by Zhengjie Liu. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 212 3810418; fax: +90 212 3810400. E-mail address: ilker.berkman@bahcesehir.edu.tr (M.I. Berkman). Interacting with Computers 24 (2012) 423–437 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Interacting with Computers journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom