Supporting Communities of Practice with Large Screen Displays

Abstract

In the foreseeable future large screen displays will be affordable and consequently widely available in work organisations. Several projects have started to investigate what kinds of information are most usefully presented by large screen displays and in which ways. This research is part of a larger effort concerning Ambient Displays, but here we focus on the visual presentation of information in work settings. Starting from communication needs in work organisations, we identify Communities of Practice as a relevant organisational group to address, and present a system for supporting them. On the basis of our experience and experience found in the literature we analyse design choices that can alleviate the cost of using these systems. Furthermore, context -sensitiveness may provide additional ways of improving the cost/benefit ratio.