User driven design of a Web-based group support system

The paper describes the need for virtual workspaces and focuses on the user driven design of GroupSystems for the World Wide Web (GS/sub Web/). GS/sub Web/ is a Web based group support system (GSS) that was initially designed based on GroupSystems for Windows. The original Web based GSS was found to provide inadequate support for virtual work teams, i.e., real groups of people who used the system to collaborate although they were separated in space and time. To extend and redesign GS/sub Web/ to meet the needs expressed by users we drew upon feedback from users, interviews with hundreds of people, and over 10 years of experience with group support research, design, and development.