Commune: a shared drawing surface

Careful observation of small-group design sessions suggests that the process of creating, referring to, and using drawings may be as important to the design process as the drawings themselves. Based on studies of the uses of drawing spaces. Commune was developed to allow designers working remotely to share a drawing surface and to engage in many of the interactions available in conventional face-to-face situations. The design of Commune makes marks and 2-dimensional cursor gestures visible simultaneously to all users, allows rapid transitions among drawing, writing, and gesturing, and provides a shared space with actions from multiple users occurring simultaneously. These capabilities support natural uses of the drawing surface during the interaction: the ability to interact on each other's marks, to emphasize talk with marks and gestures, to reference previous illustrations and concepts, and to interweave talk and drawing actions fluidly.