Using Face-to-face Dialogue as a Standard for Other Communication Systems

Because face-to-face dialogue is our first and most common form of communication, we can use it as a prototype to evaluate other forms of communication. Three features are fully present only in face-to-face dialogue: unrestricted verbal expression, meaningful non-verbal acts such as gestures and facial displays, and instantaneous collaboration between speaker and listener. In this paper, we explicate these three dimensions and then use them to measure other communication systems: written text, television, and electronic mail. Users of these other systems often spontaneously accommodate to their limitations by inventing dialogue-like features. Finally, we propose that the design of new communication systems could benefit by using face-to-face dialogue as both a standard and a source of solutions.