1. modern linguistics as a change of paradigms

Lecture 24. Communication and its types. Cooperation
1. Communication as an exchange of ideas and information
2.The types of communication

Designing and developing great software systems that allow users to effectively work together is no easy task. Doing so requires a solid grasp of several fundamental concepts in so-called “groupware” systems. One such concept is an understanding of the ways in which people tend to interact with each other while working together. In the physical world, this is governed by the relationships between them, their individual skill sets, their world views, their shared understanding (or lack thereof) and a variety of external influences such as overarching organizational roles and policies. These factors also apply to user interactions facilitated by software, and can be segmented into one or more “interaction modalities”. Understanding these modalities of interaction and how they relate to your application’s specific use cases is crucial when building systems that support remote users working together.

The model that describes how people interact put forth in this post is the “Four Cs Model" [1][2]. It defines four main interaction modalities:

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  Communication: The exchange of ideas and information
  
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  Cooperation: Independent goals with agreements not to interfere with each other.
  
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  Coordination: Actions of users directed by a coordinator to achieve a common goal.
  
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  Collaboration: The process of shared creation; collectively creating something new that could not have been created by the individual users.
  

Let’s take a look at each of these and apply them to building effective “groupware” systems.

Communication

Communication is the process by which information and ideas are exchanged between users. Communication helps users to develop shared understanding, communicate their goals and objectives, and come to consensus. Email, chat, video and audio conferences are all common examples of communication in software systems. Communication can occur between two specific users, between a group of users, broadcasted, or between users and the system itself. Communication can be one-way or two-way and can happen synchronously (real-time) or asynchronously (non-real-time). For example:

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