Legible Collaboration System Design

There is an abundance of idea processing tools available for individual use while, at the same time, there is a shortage of environments supporting collaborative thinking and brainstorming. Additionally, recorded transcripts from meetings, conferences etc. principally consist of letters and symbols to be used as future aid when recalling the proceedings. We argue that this recognition based recording method is limited, since much information cannot be captured in literal data. For example, it is difficult for a non-attendee to recall and experience an accurate reflection of the circumstances surrounding a previous meeting only through these recognition-based recordings. This problem stems not only from the inability to record the other attendant's characteristics and conduct, but also from the difficulty to capture the atmosphere and other surrounding physical information. Thus, there is a need for a system incorporating functions to record physical factors while allowing CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work). In our research, we are developing a table based collaboration support system not strictly limited by time and location. In doing so, we propose an enhanced table with a legible input system supporting direct image manipulation and video recording functions.