Montage is a reseatch prototype that explores using video to help collaborators find opportune times to interact with eaeh other.Physical proximity with colleagues affords walking down hallways and peeking into offices in order to find a good time to contact someone.By helping members of distributed work groups more naturally find opportunities to interact with each other, Montage aims to provide a sense of teleproximity Montage uses momentary, reciprocal glances among networked workstations to make it easy to peek into someone's office.From a Montage glance, users can quickly start a full-featured desktop video conference.If the glance shows that the person is not in her office, Montage provides quick access to browse her on-line calendar, send her e-mail, or send her an electronic note that pops up on her screen.Preliminary usage data show that users had short, lightweight interactions through Montage, although most glances did not result in an interactive cmnmtmication.

The Montage prototype provides lightweight audio-video glances among distributed collaborators and integrates other applications for coordinating future contact. We studied a distributed group across three conditions: before installing Montage, with Montage, and after removing Montage. We collected quantitative measures of usage as well as video-tape and user perception data. We found that the group used Montage glances for short, lightweight interactions that were like face-to-face conversations in many respects. Yet like the phone, Montage offered convenient access to other people without leaving the office. Most glances revealed that the person was not available, so it was important to integrate other tools for coordinating future interaction. Montage did not appear to displace the use of e-mail, voice-mail, or scheduled meetings.