WoW -- A System for Self-Service Collaborative Design Workshops

TL;DR

WoW is a web-based system designed to facilitate self-service collaborative design workshops on wall-sized displays, enhancing engagement and content accessibility for multi-user teams in complex problem-solving scenarios.

Contribution

This paper introduces WoW, a novel multi-surface, web-based portal that supports flexible, self-service collaborative workshops, specifically tested in the tire industry context.

Findings

WoW enables flexible multi-view setups for collaborative work.

Users reported increased engagement with WoW compared to traditional meetings.

WoW effectively consolidates multiple content sources for collaborative design.

Abstract

In many working environments, users have to solve complex problems relying on large and multi-source data. Such problems require several experts to collaborate on solving them, or a single analyst to reconcile multiple complementary standpoints. Previous research has shown that wall-sized displays supports different collaboration styles, based most often on abstract tasks as proxies of real work. We present the design and implementation of WoW, short for ``Workspace on Wall'', a multi-user Web-based portal for collaborative meetings and workshops in multi-surface environments. We report on a two-year effort spanning context inquiry studies, system design iterations, development, and real testing rounds targeting design engineers in the tire industry. The pneumatic tires found on the market result from a highly collaborative and iterative development process that reconciles conflicting constraints through a series of product design workshops. WoW was found to be a flexible solution to build multi-view set-ups in a self-service manner and an effective means to access more content at once. Our users also felt more engaged in their collaborative problem-solving work using WoW than in conventional meeting rooms.