In this paper, we describe the influence of physical proximity on the development of collaborative relationships between scientific researchers and on the execution of their work. Our evidence is drawn from our own studies of scientific collaborators, as well as from observations of research and development activities collected by other investigators. These descriptions provide the foundation for a discussion of the actual and potential role of communications technology in professional work, especially for collaborations carried out at a distance.

In this paper Green's (1989) notion of "cognitive dimensions" is used to consider the properties of notations and media for sketching. First, a cultural-cognitive approach to HCI research is briefly outlined which draws on some ideas from "distributed cognition" and Russian psychology. Rather than focussing on the cognitive aspects of an activity or the social aspects (as do cognitive psychology and ethnography, respectively) this approach attempts to describe the artifacts used in an activity in a cognitively and socially relevant way. It is argued that such an approach requires a framework within which to analyse external representations, and that Green's "cognitive dimensions" provide such a framework. The cognitive dimensions framework is described and then used to interpret a study of collaborative idea sketching which used interviewing, observational methods and a questionnaire survey of 128 academics. This analysis resulted in a cohesive and comprehensive characterisati...

The paper starts by discussing the role that Visualisation and Information Visualisation may have in the development of the next generation of user interfaces. An oriented review of issues involved in the creation of systems that take advantage of emergent computer 3D facilities and Virtual Reality systems are presented. Is defended the perspective that visualisation can promote the opportunity to foster user interaction mediated by technology. The paper ends up with a discussion of the design, architecture, and use of interactive visualisations in a system that allows the creation of a virtual world to assist knowledge sharing. The proposed system uses a 3D interactive visualisation interface to support user exploration and enhancement of the concept space. The concept space is somewhat a 3D semantic map, allowing users to define concepts by listing associated keywords. The proposed system design is briefly described in order to argue how visualisation, in particular 3D interactive visualisation, can be used for knowledge sharing support and group interaction. Applications of this system include information retrieval and indexing, and group knowledge sharing such as in educational settings. Keywords: visualisation, information visualisation, human factors, user interaction, virtual environments, knowledge sharing, cooperation and collaboration interfaces. 1

Figure 1: A user interacting with SandCanvas (left), and images created with SandCanvas (right). Sand animation is a performance art technique in which an artist tells stories by creating animated images with sand. Inspired by this medium, we have developed a new multitouch digital artistic medium named SandCanvas that simplifies the creation of sand animations. SandCanvas also goes beyond traditional sand animation with tools for mixing sand animation with video and replicating recorded free-form hand gestures. In this paper, we analyze common sand animation hand gestures, present SandCanvas’s intuitive UI, and describe implementation challenges we encountered. We also present an evaluation with professional and novice artists that shows the importance and unique affordances of this new medium.