Peepdeck: A dashboard for the distributed design studio

Abstract

Designers adopt a large amount of general-purpose tools for supporting their remote collaborative tasks. Each tool provides very diverse functionalities: from file sharing to instant communication and video collaboration. The designer struggles when filtering and combining the right information spread across the multitude of tools. This research extends McGrath's framework of task circumflex to map the collaborative demands of the design practitioner and proposes Peepdeck, a design exploration to support them. Peepdeck is a dashboard that assembles information scattered across multiple tools in a personalized and organized way. Through two design iterations followed by evaluations of the user interface, several requirements were identified for supporting collaboration awareness in design teams. Insights confirmed the relevance of combining information from different but already familiar tools, rather than attempting to replace them. It was identified the importance of optimizing for visual scanning, supporting search of content and allowing users to customize the tool.