Editorial: awareness and the WWW

TLDR: Over the last decade, the issue of awareness has received increasing attention from practitioners in academia and industry, and groups formed in the context of the workplace greatly benefit from increased awareness, which explains why human–computer interaction issues are of prime concern.

Abstract: Over the last decade, the issue of awareness has received increasing attention from practitioners in academia and industry. This applies to researchers from various horizons, and in particular from the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), the Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) and the World Wide Web (WWW) communities. Nevertheless, awareness has remained a somewhat fuzzy concept, for which there exists no single, unequivocal definition. True, awareness is often meant as awareness of other people, and refers to the ability to maintain some knowledge about the situation and activities of others. There is also a tacit agreement that maintaining this knowledge should not require much effort or, in other words, that awareness should happen as ‘‘naturally’’ as possible. Supporting technology should be designed with this aim, which explains why human–computer interaction issues are of prime concern. Research has exhibited a wide spectrum of situations, in the context of which ‘‘awareness’’ can take very different meanings. Rather than to speak about awareness as such, it is therefore more appropriate to speak about particular types of awareness. For instance, group awareness can be defined as the ability that peers may have to stay in touch and to keep track of each others activities. The information that group members maintain about each other may not be very consequent, nor very precise. Having only a general idea of what is happening, or merely that something is happening, is often already very valuable. Let us be clear about it: the realization of group awareness may not require any technology support at all. When people share the same room, they naturally produce and interpret a constant flow of subtle cues with this aim. Glancing at someone may be enough to decide whether it is appropriate or not to start a conversation. On the other hand, when the members of a group are scattered across space and time, technology may offer surrogates to this natural process}media spaces are an example for such technology. Obviously, groups formed in the context of the workplace greatly benefit from increased awareness. Communication and collaboration are easier, cooperation is smoother and, as a result, work processes are more efficient.