TY - GEN
T1 - Expressive richness
T2 - 1991 SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 1991
AU - Chalfonte, Barbara L.
AU - Fish, Robert S.
AU - Kraut, Robert E.
PY - 1991
Y1 - 1991
N2 - Both theory and data suggest that that richer, more informal, and more interactive media should be better suited for handling the more complex, equivocal, and emotional aspects of collaborative tasks. To test this hypothesis, we constructed an experiment in which participants were required to make either written or spoken annotations to a document to help a fictional co-author revise it. We seeded relatively error-free texts with errors of different scope . The results provide strong evidence that a richer - in the sense of a more expressive --medium is especially valuable for the more complex, controversial, and social aspects of a collaborative task. Subjects stated that they preferred to use voice to comment on higher-level issues in a document and to use text to deal with lower-level problems of spelling and grammar. When subjects' annotation modalities were restricted, using written annotations led them to comment on more local problems in the text, while using speech led them to comment on higher level concerns. When they did use written annotations to comment on global problems, they were less successful than when they used spoken annotations. Finally, when they offered spoken annotations, they were more likely to add features, such as personal pronouns and explanation, that made their comments more equivocal and socially communicative. These results indicate the uses to which systems that provide voice annotation are likely to be put.
AB - Both theory and data suggest that that richer, more informal, and more interactive media should be better suited for handling the more complex, equivocal, and emotional aspects of collaborative tasks. To test this hypothesis, we constructed an experiment in which participants were required to make either written or spoken annotations to a document to help a fictional co-author revise it. We seeded relatively error-free texts with errors of different scope . The results provide strong evidence that a richer - in the sense of a more expressive --medium is especially valuable for the more complex, controversial, and social aspects of a collaborative task. Subjects stated that they preferred to use voice to comment on higher-level issues in a document and to use text to deal with lower-level problems of spelling and grammar. When subjects' annotation modalities were restricted, using written annotations led them to comment on more local problems in the text, while using speech led them to comment on higher level concerns. When they did use written annotations to comment on global problems, they were less successful than when they used spoken annotations. Finally, when they offered spoken annotations, they were more likely to add features, such as personal pronouns and explanation, that made their comments more equivocal and socially communicative. These results indicate the uses to which systems that provide voice annotation are likely to be put.
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U2 - 10.1145/108844.108848
DO - 10.1145/108844.108848
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84900563191
SN - 0897913833
SN - 9780897913836
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
SP - 21
EP - 26
BT - Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 1991
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 27 April 1991 through 2 May 1991
ER -