Perceiving awareness information through 3D representations Fabrizio Nunnari Comp. Science Department University of Torino c.so Svizzera, 185 10149 Torino, Italy nunnarif@di.unito.it Carla Simone Dep. of Informatics, Systems and Communication University of Milano-Bicocca via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, 8 20126 Milano, Italy simone@disco.unimib.it ABSTRACT The paper describes a framework supporting the creation of 3D user interfaces to visualize awareness information about the cooperation context of distributed actors. The paper dis- cusses the motivations behind the framework and illustrates ThreeDmap, an editor allowing the creation and customiza- tion of 3D interfaces supporting the perception of awareness information. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.2 [INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRE- SENTATION]: User Interfaces—Graphical user interfaces (GUI); H.5.3 [INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION]: Group and Organization Interfaces— Computer-supported cooperative work 1. BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION Research in the area such as Computer Supported Coop- erative Work and Human Computer Interaction has iden- tified a range of practices through which competent actors continually and apparently effortlessly align their activities with those of their colleagues, while engaged in and without interrupting ongoing local activities. These practices have been labeled “mutual awareness”. Such coordinative prac- tices have been found to be fundamental to, and ubiquitous in, all cooperative work settings and hence worthwhile to be supported by a technology that, for obvious reasons, is adequate only if it is able to enhance perception of mutual awareness information through a rich and not obtrusive vi- sualization. In this view, a part of the interface, that we call focus, is devoted to support users in accomplishing their in- dividual or shared tasks. Hence, the focus is task oriented, i.e., it is characterized by a high degree of user involvement to govern the flow of tasks. Another part of the interface, that we call context, has to support users in monitoring the cooperative setting in which they operate. Hence, the con- text is oriented to monitor a situation and is characterized by a low amount of actions by the user who needs to perceive information generated by or concerning other actors, often in a indirect and occasional way [8]. Although logically dis- tinct, the two parts must constitute a coherent framework where users perform their collaborative behavior. ThreeDness [9] is a component that aims to facilitate the creation of visual interfaces based on a 3D technology. In the last years, many projects dealt with the presentation of awareness information, using both consolidated technologies based on WIMP (Windows Icons Mouse Pointer) paradigm (e.g., Elvin [4]), and new non-WIMP approaches (e.g., MAUI [6] or Scope [16]). In general, interfaces based on the first approach embed the context in the focus : for example, by adding specific frames or banners where awareness informa- tion is shown in terms of images of the other actors, status of shared resources, and so on. An alternative solution is to embed the focus in the context [5]. In this case, the 3D technology has been profitably used to define a new class of cooperative applications called Collaborative Virtual Envi- ronments (CVEs) [3]. CVEs mainly aim to create virtual meeting places - with realistic reproduction of scenarios and avatars’ gestures and movements - where users are immersed and forced both to perceive the context and to progress in their tasks. We claim that the 3D technology can be prof- itably used to represent the context, i.e., who is involved, where are the needed resources, and the like, by using the spatial knowledge owned by the cooperating actors. Instead, the focus interface should be implemented by means of vari- ous technologies, according to the nature of the specific (col- laborative) application. In this vein, projects like NESSIE [10] and Tower [12] adopt 3D technologies to represent awareness information without forcing user embodiment in an avatar and without repro- ducing the constraints of the physical world. In this way, awareness information can be grasped with low effort and in a peripheral way with respect to the interaction made pos- sible by the focus. This is an important point: the design of an interface promoting awareness information has to bal- ance a rich and timely provided content with the appropriate level of intrusion. The use of 3D visualization in cooperative applications is still controversial. There are few proposals