Our group has developed two multimedia-based prototype applications to help people collaborate when they are distributed across different locations. Montage also helps people find opportune times to interact, since previous work shows that most attempts to contact others are initially unsuccessful. The other is Forum, which enables speakers to give live, interactive talks over the network to audiences who participate from their desktops.
Audience members receive live video and audio of the speaker as well as the speaker's slides.
We designed these applications using a user-centered design process, which included extensive use studies that helped us understand how users react to these tools in their daily work. Speaker Information Ellen Isaacs works in SunSoft's Collaborative Computing group, an advanced development group that develops and studies the use of multimedia-based technology to help distributed groups collaborate. Previously, Isaacs worked in Sun's Human Interface group designing interfaces to various end user applications. Before joining Sun, she worked in Stanford's Knowledge Systems Lab designing a speech interface to a medical expert system. Isaacs received her PhD in cognitive psychology from Stanford and her BS from Brown University in psychology and semiotics.