Collaborative Web Search Using Tablet Terminals on a Virtual Tabletop Environment.

The Virtual Tabletop Environment (VTE) is a tablet-based framework that simulates an interactive tabletop environment suitable for collaborative work. We present a VTE application that supports collaborative Web search. Web views are placed on the virtual tabletop. Users have tablet terminals that provide windows onto the VTE, through which the Web views can be seen and manipulated. Four groups of three users participated in an evaluation of the effectiveness of the system. The results show that discussion and information sharing is more likely compared with collaboration using traditional desktop Web browsers.