The value of shared visual information for task-oriented collaboration

For several decades, researchers and engineers have struggled with the development of systems to support distance collaboration. The failure of many collaborative technologies is due, in part, to a limited understanding of how groups coordinate in collocated environments and how the coordination mechanisms of face-to-face collaboration are impacted by technology. The major goal of this thesis is to address this deficiency by building a theoretical understanding of the role that shared visual information plays in supporting group communication and performance during task-oriented collaboration. This understanding is developed over three major stages: (1) the development of a paradigm and a series of empirical studies that decompose the features of shared visual information and task structure and explore their interactions in detail, (2) the development and application of a methodology for describing the sequential structure of how visible actions support the understanding of discourse, and (3) the development of a computational model of discourse to further our theoretical understanding of the ways in which shared visual information serves communication in task-oriented collaborative discourse.