The cartoons keep us aware that something is really just a mock-up. The problem with this approach, of course, is that you may not get real behaviors. Then these cartoons give you quick glimpses at the future and get you started building up more and more hxigh fidelity stories about the future. We are in a fully communicating world now. I assume that everybody will essentially always be connected.
People also do their work in groups.
Almost all work is group work and, in fact, what we see at the computational level is really a social revolution. It's really about people communicating. That's what MUDS are about, that's what email is about, that's what the Mosaic pages are about. So, if you are really going to study how people work in groups and communicate with each other and you want to study a new product, the prototype has to replicate the social interaction, which means it has to work. Of course, the only way is to actually try new ideas out, that's when we find out if we want them.