Effects of instant messaging on the management of multiple project trajectories

Susan R. Fussell, Sara Kiesler, Leslie D. Setlock, Peter Scupelli, Suzanne Weisband

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present a study of the effects of instant messaging (IM) on individuals' management of work across multiple collaborative projects. Groups of four participants completed four web design tasks. Each participant worked on two tasks, each task with a different partner who was either co-located or remote, connected via IM. In one condition, each participant had one co-located and one remote partner. In a second condition, both partners were remote. We examined communication, division of labor, and task performance as a function of condition. The results indicated that nearly all participants divided their time unequally between projects, but less unequally in the remote/remote condition. In the co-located/remote condition, participants favored the task with the co-located partner. The results show that the effects of IM differ depending on people's multiple tasks are distributed across space. We propose a new IM interface that promotes awareness of multiple collaborators on multiple tasks.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages191-198
Number of pages8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2004
Event2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, CHI 2004 - Vienna, Austria
Duration: Apr 24 2004Apr 29 2004

Other

Other2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, CHI 2004
Country/TerritoryAustria
CityVienna
Period4/24/044/29/04

Keywords

  • CSCW
  • Collaborative writing
  • Coordination mechanisms
  • Distributed work
  • Empirical studies
  • Intellectual teamwork

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

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