Looking at the whole picture: a case study of analyzing a virtual workplace

Previously, we analyzed data from a field study to determine the usability problems in a groupware system (M. Steves et al., 2001). The fact that 75% of the system use was asynchronous, surprised us. Consequently, we suspected that the user centered method that had been employed in that evaluation, might have been insufficient to detect problems related to such heavy asynchronous use. Re-analysis of the data using an artifact-centered approach revealed additional support for our initial findings and some new usability issues. In combination, we believe that user-centered and artifact centered methods can yield superior usability analyses for systems that support both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, and provide application developers with more appropriate priorities for addressing usability problems and system design.