With many businesses becoming global in their reach, the use of distributed meetings and associated conferencing technologies is core to their successful and efficient operation. However, the actual effectiveness of these meetings is thought to vary enormously. This paper reports on a multi-country investigation into the factors that make for an effective distributed meeting in everyday practice. The results are based on a survey conducted with 400 professionals, supported by 40 interviews with experienced teleconferencing users. Ten interviews and 100 survey responses were obtained from each of four countries: Australia, China, the UK and the US.The results indicate that a wide range of factors need to be optimised to ensure the most effective distributed meetings. The most influential factors were good sound quality and reliable conferencing technology, but other important aspects included having a good chairperson and attentive participants. The survey also identified some differences between countries, particularly between China and the other countries surveyed in issues such as speaker identification and the barriers to adopting new conferencing technology.
Author Biographies
Joy Goodman-Deane, University of Cambridge
Dr Joy Goodman-Deane is a Research Associate at the Engineering Design Centre at the University of Cambridge. She has over 12 years of experience in usability research, with a focus on inclusive design, examining how best to meet the needs of a wide range of users with different capabilities and needs. Her work seeks to understand the users’ experiences and needs, and to apply these to the design of products and services. Another key aspect of her research is developing materials and tools to communicate these issues to designers, to help them produce more inclusive products in practice.
Anna Mieczakowski, University of Cambridge
At the time of the research on this paper, Dr Anna Mieczakowski was a Research Associate at the Cambridge University Engineering Design Centre. She is now a Design Research Lead at Eclipse Experience Ltd. Anna’s work focuses on unravelling and addressing the intricacies of users’ cognitive and socio-psychological factors in the adoption and sustained usage of designs, communications and interventions across healthcare, education and telecommunications. She is also an Industrial Fellow at the Cambridge University Engineering Design Centre and a member of the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy where she advises the UK government and commercial organisations on responsible, people-focused design.
Jeff Patmore, University of Cambridge
Jeff Patmore is an innovator, researcher, and mentor specializing in information and communications technology (ICT). During his 30+ years in industry he worked in both the United Kingdom and the United States (Massachusetts & San Francisco Bay Area) and was responsible for several key developments in on-line communication, the Internet and Broadband. He is Research Fellow in Engineering Design at the University of Cambridge.
John Clarkson, University of Cambridge
Prof John Clarkson is Director of the Engineering Design Centre and Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Cambridge. His research interests are in the general area of engineering design, particularly the development of design methodologies to address specific design issues, for example, process management, change management, healthcare design and inclusive design. As well as publishing over 500 papers, he has written and edited a number of books on medical equipment design, inclusive design and process management.
