Spatial Faithful Groupware Model in Collaborative Virtual Environments

Traditional groupware platforms are found restrained and cumbersome for supporting geographically dispersed design collaboration. This paper starts with two groupware models, which are Single Display Groupware and Mixed Presence Groupware, and then discusses some of the limitations and argues how these limitations could possibly impair efficient communication among remote designers. Next, it suggests that the support for spatial faithfulness and Tangible User Interface (TUI) could help fill the gap between Face-to-Face (F2F) collaboration and computer-mediated remote collaboration. A spatial faithful groupware with TUI support is then developed to illustrate this concept.