Research has shown that computers are notoriously bad at supporting the management of parallel activities and interruptions, and that mobility increases the severity of these problems. This paper presents activity-based computing (ABC) which supplements the prevalent data- and application-oriented computing paradigm with technologies for handling multiple, parallel and mobile work activities. We present the design and implementation of ABC support embedded in the Windows XP operating system. This includes replacing the Windows Taskbar with an Activity Bar, support for handling Windows applications, a zoomable user interface, and support for moving activities across different computers. We report an evaluation of this Windows XP ABC system which is based on a multi-method approach, where perceived ease-of-use and usefulness was evaluated together with rich interview material. This evaluation showed that users found the ABC XP extension easy to use and likely to be useful in their own work.

Several CSCW studies have shown that coordination of work in hospitals is particular challenging, and that clinicians put much effort into maintaining mutual awareness on the flow of work. Despite these apparent challenges, very little work has been done to design technology which helps people coordinate highly cooperative work in such a critical setting. In this paper we propose a novel way of supporting coordination in this hectic and time-critical environment. AwareMedia is a system which promotes social, spatial, and temporal awareness in combination with a shared messaging system. AwareMedia runs on large interactive displays situated around the hospital, and it is designed especially to support coordination at an operation ward. We present the design, implementation, and deployment of AwareMedia and based on preliminary data from our on-going deployment, we discuss how AwareMedia is working in-situ.