Blended Interaction Spaces
The Blended Interaction Space (BIS) concept combines video conferencing elements and distributed shared interactive digital screen elements to support distributed hands-on collaboration in the workplace in a way that participants feel as if they are physically together.
This feeling is achieved by a "blending" of the two spaces, which allows participants of a meeting to communicate and interact as they would if they were located face-to-face. The interaction design for the physical and the digital workspace is an important part of achieving this "blending".
BIS can be used to facilitate a more physically distributed workforce than in the past, while reducing the need for colleagues to actually travel long distances to work together. The very development and general availability of technologies such as the Internet, email, mobile telephones, desktop sharing, instant messaging, video conferencing etc. have generated new work practices in which physical location matters very little. Project teams are often created across several physical locations, and we have an expectation to be able to collaborate in such ways with the aid of technology.
BIS sets itself apart from previous work in media spaces and telepresence by combining both support for natural person-to-person communication and distributed shared interactive media spaces for data sharing and collaborative manipulation.
