Knowledge in co-action: social intelligence in collaborative design activity.

This paper contributes to the growing research on social intelligence design by proposing that technological interfaces need to afford us the possibilities for coordinated autonomy. Computer based interfaces are predominantly modelled on the performance and cognition of individuals, and therefore afford sequential actions. This paper presents an example of this with an HCI research experiment using a large scale interactive electronic whiteboard surfaces for a collaborative sketching task. The experiment raised awareness of the need to facilitate skilled co-performance or co-action when designing interactive interfaces. The research was undertaken at the Interactive WorkSpaces Laboratory, Stanford University, USA.