Discourse Architectures:
Designing and Visualizing Computer Mediated Conversation

A workshop at CHI 2002

Organizers:
Tom Erickson (snowfall@acm.org)
Susan Herring (herring@indiana.edu)
Warren Sack (sack@sims.berkeley.edu)

Last updated: June 13, 2002

The position papers that are available have been added below.

About the Workshop

The goal of the workshop was to investigate the relationship between conversation and the design of CMC systems. Specifically, we proposed to examine conversational coherence from the perspective of graphical interfaces. Our approach was to invite researchers and designers of CMC systems to submit position papers that addressed how they dealt with the issue of conversational coherence in their work. For researchers this often involved theories of coherence, or analytical methods (grounded in some theoretical perspective) for examining ways in which coherence is achieved. For designers this involved approaches to designing systems that foster or encourage some form of coherence, or analyzing the ways in which coherence is achieved (or not) in existing systems. In both cases our focus was on the role played by graphical representations, either in support or illustrating analysis, or, in the context of CMC systems, in the way graphical representations served as a resource for the production and maintenance of coherence.

Sessions and Position Papers

Session 1: Introduction

Welcome, 30-sec round-the-table intros, structure and purpose, introductory remarks

 

Session 2: Social Coherence and Graphs

Howard D. White. Cross-Textual Cohesion and Coherence: position paper.

Caroline Haythornthwaite and Michael Twidale. Visualization of Conversationally Constructed Social Networks: position paper and figures.

John C. Paolillo: Social Coherence in Computer-Mediated Communication: position paper.

 

Noriko Hara (discussant): position paper; profile

Warren Sack (discussant): related paper

 

Session 3: Egocentric Relationships, Faces, and Clusters

1. Shelly Farnham.Visualizing Discourse Architectures with Automatically Generated Person-Centric Social Networks: position paper

2. Carman Neustaedter & Saul Greenberg. Supporting Coherence with a 3D Instant Messenger Visualization: position paper

3. Steve Whittaker, Quentin Jones, Loren Terveen. Using personal social networks to support communication: position paper

 

Yvonne Rogers. Discussant: postion paper not available

Wendy Kellogg. Discussant: position paper

 

 

Session 4: Threads, Intertextual Relations, Tables, and Trees

Christine Halverson. Building Coherence through Analysis ­ and Potential Design Implications: position paper not available

Kerstin Severinson Eklundh and Henrry Rodriguez. Exploring coherence relationships in online group discussions around Web documents: position paper
Paula S. Newman: Treetables for Reading Archived Discussions: position paper

 

Danyel Fisher. Discussant: position paper

Susan Herring. Discussant: related paper

 

Session 5: Participants, Topics, Circles, Boxes, and Pages

Judith Donath. Visualizing Conversational Coherence: position paper

Marc Smith: position paper

Greg Wolf. Visual Discourse: Explicitly constructing the visual representation of a conversation. position paper not available

 

Quentin Jones. Discussant: position paper

Tom Erickson. Discussant: related paper

 

Session 6: Synthesis and Wrap Up

Susan Herring. Discussant: Synthesis Slides

Original Workshop Proposal

The goal of this workshop is to examine the issue of coherence in computer-mediated (text-based) conversation (CMC), and how it can be visualized graphically. Coherence, broadly defined, is that which in a discourse connects utterances with utterances, utterances with people, and people with other people. It is, in short, the "glue" of text and conversation. Coherence is manifested in and through patterns of message exchange (including turn-taking, threading, and cross-posting), citation and other forms of intertextual reference, and social networks. Visualizations of coherence phenomena take the form of graphical user interfaces and graphical representations produced by quantitative and/or qualitative analyses.

In this workshop, we will approach the issue of coherence from two perspectives: design and analysis. As designers of CMC systems, we often sense that computer-mediated conversation has a tendency towards drift, dissolution and chaos, and that participants in CMC have to do extra work to 'stay on course.' Therefore, we solicit approaches to designing CMC systems that aim to support participants in achieving coherence in their conversational interactions. We especially encourage reports of novel CMC system designs that support coherence, as well as analyses that visualize ways in which participants have developed practices that support the achievement of coherence in conventional CMC systems.

At the same time, as analysts, we recognize that computer-mediated conversations are often not as chaotic as they appear to the untrained eye. Coherence lurks below the surface, and we have developed a wide range of analytical techniques for uncovering and explicating it. Often these techniques involve diagrams or other graphical representations of structure (among utterances, persons, groups, or some combination of these). We solicit descriptions and demonstrations of analytical techniques for representing coherence in CMC.

We use the phrase 'Discourse Architectures' as a rubric for both of these perspectives. That is, we are interested both in the structure or architecture *of* discourse (the ways in which the utterances which form a conversation interrelate and build upon one another), and in architectures *for* discourse (the ways in which CMC systems can be designed to shape the conversation that takes place within them).

The basic premise underlying the workshop is that the understandings of coherence developed by designers and researchers can usefully inform one another. Analytical representations based on discourse research and/or theory might, suitably modified, serve as interface designs, and the interplay between graphical user interfaces and the achievement of coherence by users might advance research understandings.

Long Version: See http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/DiscourseArch02CFP.html