StaTube: Facilitating State Management in Instant Messaging Systems

Instant messaging systems, such as Skype, offer text, audio and video channels for one-on-one and group conversations, both for personal and professional communication. They are commonly used at a distance, i.e., across countries and continents. To avoid disrupting other tasks, they display personal states to signal others when to contact someone and when not. This mechanism, however, heavily relies on users setting their own state correctly. In an online survey with 46 participants we found that neglecting state updates leads to unwanted messages, either because the state is incorrect or others disrespect it because they assume it to be wrong anyway. We address this situation with the StaTube, a tangible object offering (1) peripheral interaction for setting one’s own state and (2) peripheral awareness of selected others’ state. In an in-situ evaluation we found first indicators that (1) peripheral interaction fosters more frequent state updates and more accurate state information, and (2) that our participants felt more aware of their contacts’ states due to the physical ambient representation.