MemTable : contextual memory in group workspaces

Abstract

This thesis presents the design and implementation of MemTable, an interactive touch table that supports co-located group meetings by capturing both digital and physical interactions in its memory. The goal of the project is to demonstrate hardware and software design principles that integrate recording, recalling, and reflection during the life cycle of a project in one tabletop system. MemTable's hardware design prioritizes ergonomics, social interaction, structural integrity, and streamlined implementation. Its software supports heterogeneous input modalities for a variety of contexts: brainstorming, decision making, event planning, and story-boarding. The user interface introduces personal menus, capture elements, and tagging to help identify the context of meeting interactions. It records the history of the implicit and explicit events during meetings. A preliminary evaluation is presented of user feedback on the capture and recall features. A longitudinal design plan outlines a framework for future work that integrates review and reflection functions into a comprehensive system. Additional features are presented for browsing and searching prior meeting data, visualizing long term work patterns, and integrating meeting data with external web services.