Equal Opportunities: Do Shareable Interface Promote More Group Participation Than single User Displays?

The main focus of the paper was to justify the use of digital surfaces for collaborative work by providing qualitative and quantitative proof. One additional concept added was that tabletops provide equal opportunity to the participants in order to contribute to the task. Equal opportunity is provided through the use of multi-touch enabled screens that allow simultaneous manipulation by multiple users from all sides of the tabletop.
Background Analysis: It was found that users needed to be encouraged to familiarize with and make use of a shared display. Additionally, small groups are more comfortable with tabletops than vertical displays. It was also clear that with the use of tangible objects, actions of others are more visible.

The researchers studied collaborative work in three situations: 1) Single Entry Small Laptop. 2)Equal Opportunity Tabletop 3) Equal Opportunity Tabletop with tangibles.
Quantitative Analysis: According to the first analysis less time was taken to complete the task in the laptop and the tangible tabletop case. The researchers then did further analysis on 1) the verbal and non-verbal communication 2)and level of participation of each person in the verbal communication and in manipulating the system. According to the analysis of the verbal communication, it was the highest in case of the laptop. Similarly, according to the results of the equal level of participation of each person in the group, it was less in case of the laptop in both verbal and physical participation.  The researchers suggest that providing accessible entry points lead to equal verbal participation from all, however  may not result in equal physical participation.

Qualitative Analysis:  The researchers were able to clarify the results of the quantitative analysis through these analysis. According to the results, in case of the laptop, the person who spoke the most, used the system the most. Moreover, verbal communication was more incase of the laptop because the person manipulating the mouse was giving running commentary or asking clarifications from the team members, Whereas, incase of the tabletop with the tangibles, the person who spoke the least contributed more physically. Some interesting finding were that, turn taking becomes awkward in single entry shared space. And tabletop with tangibles encouraged the division of labour and personal space. According to the comments of the users, people liked the use of tangibles because it clearly show the available options. Incase, of the laptop people got frustrated with not being able to present their own ideas themselves.
  
Review: Though this study wasn't necessary to obtain these results. However, the study did point out the advantages and reasons to design groupware applications. The most important reason being the need to provide equal opportunity for contribution by each team member.  I was wondering if a system was specifically designed to prompt input from each user (turn by turn), what will be the results.