Design and Evaluation of a Collaborative System That Supports Distributed User Interfaces

Group work is a fundamental human activity in all areas of life; it is a good exercise to enhance integration and communication among users. In addition, it is highly effective in increasing users' creativity, thus yielding better and more satisfactory results. This task is very complex; however, thanks to the benefits offered by new technologies, today we can build systems designed to facilitate such collaboration. This paper proposes the "Co-Interactive Table": an interactive and intuitive system developed to enhance the collaboration in meeting rooms. It is based on mobile devices, RFID technology integrated in panels. This solution offers Distributed User Interfaces and a new style of interaction, which consists of bringing the mobile device close to the panel. To improve collaboration, the workspaces are divided into two spaces, collaborative and public, which consist of a display projected on the wall, and the personal and private spaces, which consist of the user's personal device. An assessment has been carried out in order to verify user satisfaction in performing tasks with this system.