AUDIO-ENHANCED COLLABORATION AT AN INTERACTIVE ELECTRONIC WHITEBOARD                                                          

Christian MllerTomfelde and Sascha Steiner                                              
GMD - German National Research Center for Information Technology                                         
IPSI- Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute                                      
GMD-IPSI, Dolivostr. 15, D- 64293 Darmstadt, Germany                                             
{mueller-tomfelde,steiner}@darmstadt.gmd.de                                                          
                                            

ABSTRACT

This paper describes an experimental setup to investigate new                                                             
possibilities to support cooperative work of a team with audio                                                            
feedback on a large interactive electronic whiteboard, called                                                             
DynaWall  . To enrich the interaction and the feedback qualities                                                          
within a team work situation the DynaWall is equipped with a                                                              
set of loudspeakers which are invisibly integrated into the                                                               
environment. Different forms of audio feedback are realized and                                                           
discussed to meet the requirements for collaborative team work                                                            
situations. An audio feedback for a gesture interface woundith s                                                          
cues is implemented to improve the use of gestures to execute
commands. Furthermore a spatial sound property of moved and                                                               
thrown information objects on the surface of the otherwise
silent electronic whiteboard is introduced to add an imitated
natural sound behavior. The focus of the setup is to experiment
with sound feedback for a non-standard computer environment    
useful in a cooperative team work situation.                   




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