DYNA JOURNAL ENGINEERING

Key words:

Colaboración, comunicación interpersonal, diseño web, herramientas interactivas, usabilidad, grupos de apoyo, diseño centrado en el usuario, groupware

Article type:

NOTA TECNICA / TECHNICAL NOTE

Section:

COLLABORATIONS

The objective of this paper was to describe a strategy for designing web-groupware applications to support basic activities for communication, collaboration, and coordination in work groups. The proposed strategy contributed to generate good designs by encouraging users' participation throughout the design process. Feedback provided by users early during the design process helped to ensuring that designs offer adequate interactions to foster communication, collaboration, and coordination among members of a work group. The traditional User Centered Design process represented the base of this strategy, which was reinforced by integrating specific groupware features (communication, collaboration, and coordination). A study was conducted to analyze the pertinence of the proposal, the process provided was followed obtaining feedback from actual users after each stage and ending with a digital mock-up for a web-groupware application. Study findings demonstrated that proposal is capable to provide a reliable starting point to achieve well-designed user interfaces that include interaction aligned to basic tasks and needs of communication, collaboration, and coordination in work groups.