Visual collaborative tools have recently emerged and gained popularity to innovate and/or address problems collaboratively within teams. By providing a shared language and/or a shared visualization, they support several challenges of collaboration related to sense-making and sense-giving and action planning in multior-transfunctional teams. One of the goals of these tools is to assist teams to explore and/or brainstorm on a given problem. This is especially useful in processes which need to generate new options and alternatives through design. These tools allow for better structuring and bounding of a problem and facilitate solution searches in innovative ways during collaboration. This minitrack focuses on the design and development challenges, related theoretical explanations and justifications, and empirical evidence of using such tools. We also invite works that develop evaluation frameworks, or conduct empirical assessments of the effects of using these tools. We also encourage submissions that report the design processes of such tools and/or their conceptual modeling, as well as, their ontological and/or cognitive foundations. This minitrack invites submissions on, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- Design / Development process of visual tools
- Design principles of this/these tool/s
- Conceptual modeling
- Modeling methods, ontological modeling of methods that underlie the tools
- Conceptual foundations of visual cognition and related sense making
- How to design such tool(s) for shared visualization
- Explanations how visual tool/s can support innovation in teams
- In what way/s these artifacts can facilitate cross-boundary collaboration
- The role of visual tool/s in promoting the use of design thinking (and vice versa)
- The role of IS research and design theories in designing such tool/s for managerial/strategic purposes and practice in general
- How the models of these tools can be transformed into computer-aided design options downstream
- Implications of such tools for design practice and theory
Minitrack Co-Chairs:
Stéphanie Missonier, University of Lausanne (primary contact)
Hazbi Avdiji, University of St. Gallen
Yves Pigneur, University of Lausanne
Robert Winter, University of St. Gallen