Abstract
Security advisors explore a client’s home to discover, document, explain, and recommend solutions for security problems. Evidence from the field shows that home-owners rarely follow through to implement better security. We re-imagine the advisory process from an information-transfer activity to a collaborative problem-solving activity. We use the precepts of collaboration engineering, including the Six Layer Model of Collaboration, to develop a new collaborative work system in which security experts and home owners work together to improve security. We provide evidence that the new work practice using the "SmartProtector" application based on new thinkLets for dyadic collaboration improves outcomes in the field. Results are interesting to three stakeholders. First, police officials, and other security advisors can use the approach to introduce collaborative security advisory services in their cities. Second, development teams for future advisory systems in any domain can use our approach to capture the design rationale for their systems. Third, collaboration engineers and researchers can use and expand on the thinkLets we codified for reuse in designing mobile advisory services.
Schwabe, Gerhard