Achieving Common Ground: Collaborative Information Seeking in an Asymmetric Virtual Environment

Distance collaborations supported by virtual environments (VE) are often accessed using different interaction platforms with different perspectives. However, most research assumes a single shared platform. Using these different technologies to access the same virtual space concurrently raises interesting cognitive challenges. This research examined collaborative information seeking, mental model development, and problem solving. To investigate these challenges, two geographically separated participants worked together on collaborative information tasks. One participant was in an immersive Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) while the other participant navigated the same space on a 2D display of a desktop computer. Participants consisted of 61 pairs of Hungarian students. The asymmetry of the technologies involved exacerbated the usual difficulties in establishing common ground, as well as achieving mutual orientation and joint awareness. Problematic assumptions, particularly mismatches in representation between the physical and virtual world, affected participants’ ability to coordinate their actions, leading to creative workarounds. Three key themes of breakdown and repair in collaborative information seeking in the VE were observed: (1) joint discovery of the common information space affordances; (2) joint discovery of the information representations; and (3) creating shared mental model of different affordances and capabilities. These challenges confirm the need for specific design features to better support collaborative information seeking in soon-to-be-commonplace asymmetric VEs. This qualitative study gives a basis for design guidelines.