Online Communication Environment Design for Encouraging Reciprocal Use of Information among Groups

In face-to-face settings such as meeting rooms or classrooms, it is possible to have multiple dialogical spaces within one place. This provides an opportunity to easily access others’ opinions and ideas through dialogues with nearby individuals, contributing to increased creativity and understanding in group discussions for problem-solving within the same venue. However, in many online communication environments, due to their structure, opportunities to utilize external dialogues and information are lost. This poses a challenge as discussions often rely solely on the abilities and resources within each group for problem-solving. This study conducted an experiment in which participants generated ideas in a face-to-face situation that simulated an online interactive environment to clarify whether allowing groups of problem solvers to observe each other improves the problem-solving performance of the groups. The results show that there was interaction as sharing ideas among the groups; however, the efficiency of idea generation at the individual group level did not improve depending on the amount of bystanding opportunities. Additionally, in the condition where the opportunity to observe other groups was temporary, there was a tendency for the ideas generated by the entire group to become more similar compared to the condition where the opportunity was constantly available.