A Comparison of Cooperative and Competitive Visualizations for Co-located Collaboration

Abstract

We present a study that investigates the influence of different types of visualizations on collaboration. The visualizations present the group's performance either in a more cooperative or more competitive way. Decades of research suggest that cooperation leads to greater productivity than competition. However, most of the existing group mirror visualizations achieve an increase in productivity and better self-regulation by enabling a direct comparison of performance within the group. We conducted a repeated measures study with 12 groups that were supported by visualizations that displayed the number of ideas of a brainstorming session (1) per person (competitive condition) (2) per group (cooperative condition), (3) per person and per group (mixed condition) and (4) without visualization (baseline). Results indicate that groups that see a combination of individual and group performance (mixed condition) are more productive, more satisfied with their results and participate in a more balanced way.