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higher knowledge level have communicated to each
other more. Specifically, they have also exchanged
more domain specific messages, so they have
focused more on the task to perform. In the same
way, it has been possible to identify a difference
between two potential styles of collaborative work:
one in which collaboration occurs at a
communication level, and another in which there are
frequent turn changes. Regarding domain specific
conclusions, the most relevant one was that when
users had problems defining the suitable set of use
cases, these problems came from a lack of use cases,
and not an excess of them.
Another conclusion we have drawn is that users
do not find different versions of advanced chats we
have implemented useful. Instead, they prefer to use
the traditional chat. This can be seen in the statistics
of use of the chats as well as in the subjective
evaluation carried out by users. Regarding statistics
obtained during the study, users working with the
chat with references to objects exchanged more
messages, changed turns less often and obtained
higher grades. We have concluded that users
working with this chat seem to focus on the
conversation about the problem to be solved.
However, a traditional chat do not cause this effect
and causes users to change turns very often.
Concerning recommendations for the further use of
chats in this kind of tools, the study make us think
that the traditional chat is the best option as long as
the advanced chats do not include features that make
them attractive enough for users. A better ease of
use or some adaptable options may help to achieve
this goal.
To conclude with, it will be necessary in further
empirical studies to analyze the reasons behind the
preference for the traditional chat. The uselessness
of advanced chats for a certain domain and an
incorrect implementation of the concepts
incorporated in the tool are some possible reasons
that will have to be considered. For example, a
different set of sentence openers in the structured
chat may have yielded higher values. In general,
results obtained during the study may have been
influenced by the amount of users that participated
and for the nature of the problems that users solved.
Thus, in further studies we will try to count on the
presence of a higher number and more representative
sample of users and we will use a different kind of
problems in order to check whether the results of
this study are validated or not.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research has been partially supported by the
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain) in
the TIN2011-29542-C02-02 project.
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