Activity-based collaboration for interactive spaces

Abstract

Activity-based computing (ABC) is a conceptual and technological framework for designing interactive systems that offers a better mapping between the activities people conduct and the digital entities they use. In ABC, rather than interacting directly with lower-level technical entities like files, folder, documents, etc., users are able to interact with ‘activities’ which encapsulate files and other lowlevel resources. In ABC an ‘activity’ can be shared between collaborating users and can be accessed on different devices. As such, ABC is a framework that suits the requirements of designing interactive spaces. This chapter provides an overview of ABC with a special focus on its support for collaboration (‘Activity Sharing’) and multiple devices (‘Activity Roaming’). These ABC concepts are illustrated as implemented in two different interactive spaces technologies; ReticularSpaces [1] and the eLabBench [2, 3]. The chapter discusses the benefits of activity-based collaboration support for these interactive spaces, while also discussing limitations and challenges to be addressed in further research.