Sharing serendipity in the workplace

The Forum is a collaborative working environment that consists of two shared spaces: a space for informal interaction (Contact Space), and a workspace for synchronous meetings using audioconferencing support (Meeting Space). It is designed to enable people, who should meet each other to do so naturally, providing an environment for richer online interactions. This paper discusses three evaluations of the Forum Contact Space: a conceptual evaluation, a prototype evaluation, and an ethnographic evaluation. Each evaluation was undertaken to improve the Contact Space usability, examine whether it supports chance encounters, and learn from participant feedback, areas for improvement of future Forum versions. The conceptual evaluation using focus groups showed group discrepancies regarding how the Contact Space would be beneficial for producing chance encounters. In the prototype evaluation, the findings suggest that chance encounters were produced and that the Concept Space was perceived as an environment for supporting group cohesiveness. A common theme from the findings of the ethnographic evaluation was the division of the Contact Space and its related parts into two tools: a core tool; and a peripheral tool, dependent on whether it was active. As groups are increasingly distributed over geographical distances, the benefits of a shared virtual space for communication and interaction are being realised.