A social proxy for distributed tasks: Design and evaluation of a working prototype

Abstract

This paper describes an approach to managing tasks and processes that are distributed across a large number of people. The basic idea is to use a social visualization called a task proxy to create a shared awareness amongst the participants in a task or process. The process awareness provided by the task proxy enables its users to monitor the task state, the states of participants, and to communicate with those in particular states. We describe the concept, a first prototype, its evaluation, and discuss future directions.