Copyright on this material is held by the authors. Here we describe TeamRooms, a groupware system based on the metaphor of a shared space. A physical team room is a shared space that can be used by a group for more than just meetings. Members of the group can perform individual work in the room, while taking advantage of equipment, documents and other artifacts that the team can permanently store there. The room serves as an archive of the group's work, and a convenient locale to leave materials for other team members.
Network servers can host a number of different rooms for a single community.
Group members use TeamRooms to connect to these servers to interact with the rooms and each other. The large window represents a single shared room. TeamRooms user interface. For example, telepointers within the application support gesturing. Idle indicators and periodic video snapshots give a sense of whether collaborators are attending to the work area.