Investigating multi-touch tabletop technology: Facilitating collaboration, interaction and awareness

Recent evidence suggests that a tabletop technology has a potential to support face to face collaboration and awareness of users in co-located environment. However, several limitations of this technology, particularly, its interaction techniques were reported in related literature. Therefore, this study introduces extended interaction mechanisms, such as two-way rubber band, drag-and-response, and central collection area. One experiment was conducted to evaluate differences in collaborative performance and oral and physical interactions of participants with these and other current interaction mechanisms. Furthermore, this study aimed to investigate participants' perceptions toward proposed interaction mechanisms and its functions to support awareness and collaboration. This paper discusses results, research findings, and implications of this study along with conclusions and several suggestions for future development and research.