A Tool to Support Collaboration in Electronic Paper Prototyping

This paper presents Gabbeh, a prototype that we have developed to integrate pen-based electronic prototyping media within a framework of participatory design practice. The main purpose of this tool is to discover to what extent an electronic paper prototyping tool could facilitate computer supported collaboration in the early stages of development process of interactive systems. Recent years have seen the rapid development of new interaction devices in which a display screen is combined with pen-based input to allow users to create sketches or hand-written notes in an interaction that is similar to writing with a pen on paper. Research with such devices has shown how this capability can be used to rapidly create simple prototypes of interactive systems, such as websites. Such devices developed to date are designed in a way that facilitates only one of the stakeholder groups' work (e.g. designers) and they don't usually support equal opportunity in designing interactive systems for members of different stakeholder groups (i.e. users, analysts, designers, developers, project managers).