Investigating Communication Grounding In Cross-Surface Interaction

This work investigates how two different cross-surface interaction techniques support communication "grounding" during a collaborative sensemaking task. Grounding is the process of establishing mutual knowledge, beliefs, or assumptions during conversation to effectively communicate, and is essential for collaborative analysis. Our study found several specific design features of the studied cross-surface interfaces that either supported or hindered the grounding process. For instance, one technique provided "flexible ownership" of widgets on a shared tabletop that controlled the data connection between the tabletop and users' personal tablets. This feature enabled cooperative interaction strategies known to facilitate the grounding process. We discuss these results, and other cross-surface design features that impact grounding.