After having pressed the “Start Mindmapping Session” button in the figure above, the
“diagram menu” will be replaced by a session selection panel. The server will provide information about ongoing mind map sessions and who is attending the various sessions.
Figure 4.3. Here you see how the system looks from Henrik’s point of view. There is only one session in the session list. By pressing that session, Henrik can obtain information about who created the session and who is currently working in it.
The idea behind this functionality is that users can log onto the system at different times.
Users should then have the option of joining their teammates, or be able to create a new session. By applying the room metaphor (Greenberg & Roseman, 1998), each session becomes like a small room. Each session will thus have boundaries, and users in one session will not be aware of users in another.
If there are no ongoing sessions, the user will have to create a new session. A new session is prepared when the user presses the “New Session” button. The interface will change from the
“Join Session” panel to the panel displayed in figure 4.4. This panel contains two lists; the list A list of
sessions
Information area.
Displaying information about the selected session.
on the left contains information about logged-on users who have not yet joined a session (users in the hallway), while the list on the right shows which users have been invited into the new session. The arrowed buttons between the lists will let the creator decide who is to be invited in and who not. Also, by pressing the name of one of the persons in (any of) the lists, the user data in the information area at the bottom right of the screenshot will be updated.
Figure 4.4. A screenshot of the “New Session” panel; here the creator must specify the session name and can also invite other users, although this is not necessary to create the session.
To complete figure 4.4, at least the session name23 must be specified. Next, the creator must choose whether he wants the session to be supported by a pedagogical agent or not.
Figure 4.5. Here the creator can choose to let the session be supported by a coordination agent.
23Two sessions cannot have the same name, the server will modify the session name of the most recent session to session2, session3, etc.
List of online users
List of invited users
Information about the user selected in one
As you can see from the screenshot above the predefined value is "yes". By pressing the next button once more, the creator accepts that a pedagogical agent will support this session. When this decision has been made, the user can choose if he wants to specify the main node in the new session, or if he wants to load an old session from the server.
Figure 4.6. The user can choose whether he wants to continue with an already saved session (by loading it) or start from scratch by defining the main node in the new session.
If the user chooses to start from scratch, the main, centre node must be specified. This node defines the theme24 for the mind map, and is the root in the hierarchical tree. Look at figure 4.7 to see the graphical interface the user must go through.
Figure 4.7. The clip shows the creator specifying the name of the main node in the new session.
Otherwise, the user can choose to load an old mind map diagram into the new session. You can look at the file selection dialog displayed in figure 4.8 to see how this works.
Figure 4.8. Figure presents a file-chooser dialog used to select loaded sessions. Users select
24In current version the main concept can be deleted. I have considered whether this option should be removed, or otherwise impaired somehow (for instance, all participants having to concur to allow the deletion of the main concept). A coordination agent can also deal with these issues since Buzan does not make a clear statement about whether or not a main concept has to exist in a mind map.
session with a timestamp from the list, and the session name will be presented in the information area to the right.
This enables several sessions to load the same saved diagram, modify it and save it again without overwriting the original session. Each time a session is saved, a time stamp will be generated to avoid deleting sessions by accident. The timestamp is added at the end of the session name. By looking closely at figure 4.8 you can see that the session “Stable_Build”
was saved at 23:07.4 on the 14 May. By pressing the “Load Session” button, the selected session will be loaded into the session.
So far, I have only described how to log on and create a session. I have been quite detailed about these procedures, as they are rather complex and probably not something potential users do every day. Still, the rationale behind this functionality is to create a way to allow multiple teams of users to work simultaneously, without even knowing about each other. Sessions becomes like private rooms with boundaries. Experience proves that most users need to be helped and guided through the steps of creating a new session (if they have never done it before). Maybe this is a sign of bad design choices on my part, but once they get into the diagram users seem to grasp the tools with ease.