Changing the way we communicate (Image: Google)

Innovation is our regular column that highlights emerging technological ideas and where they may lead

Over the past week Google has been rolling out the first invitations to its latest service, a complex “real-time communication and collaboration” system dubbed Google Wave.

Instead of sending messages back and forth, users create web-page-like documents called waves that others can modify or comment on, using a combination of features more usually seen separately in email, wikis, instant messaging and social networking (see a video introducing Wave).


Early reviews have been positive, and demand for invitations outstrips supply (Google says ours is still on the way). But even for those who have tried and liked it, Wave’s potential is still hard to assess. The problem is that most talk about it is focussed on technology, not people.

Human factors

“We need to ask what opportunity Wave allows people to express themselves and to understand what other people mean when they contribute a message to a conversation,” explains psychologist Leon Watts, who researches communication via computer at the University of Bath, UK.

The creators of Wave pitch it as “what email would look like if it were invented today”, not several decades ago. But what email “looks like” is as much down to social protocols as to anything else, says Watts.

“It started out as very informal memos; now it’s used for absolutely everything and has become much more formal,” says Watts. Organisations in particular have, intentionally and otherwise, encouraged people to adopt certain ways of using email that are by now second nature to us.

The cultural norms that will shape Wave’s future are yet to be established. But informed crystal-ball gazing is possible, based on what we know about how people use existing technology.

Time tricks

Two of the features of Wave that are likely to alter how people communicate are related to time: it allows users to see others typing live, even if they later delete that text; and a “replay” function plays back the complex tangle of interactions that produced a wave.

Past research has shown that the real-time, synchronous, nature of instant messaging (IM) encourages an informal tone, says Susan Herring, who researches the convergence of computer communication platforms at Indiana University in Bloomington. “It invokes face-to-face communication and encourages people to use conversational strategies,” she explains.

Seeing live typing may accentuate that effect, but Wave can also be asynchronous, like email. “We won’t see the difference between the two types of communication disappear,” says Herring. “More elaborate messages are still possible, but when the other person is online you will be drawn to a more informal style.” The pace and style of communicating with Wave will be more varied than with email.

Held to account

Meanwhile, the novel replay feature may have multiple consequences, says Watts. One is to add significance to Wave messages – just as the fact that people can store emails they have received means writers tend to rein in emotional emphasis they might let rip in spoken or IM chat.

“Replaying a Wave gives an even more tangible and reliable feeling for the history of a relationship,” Herring explains, compared to the way email threading and sorting quickly breaks down, hiding chronology.

Replays may also improve our ability to know the intentions of others – a capacity called theory of mind that is central to the way we communicate. Different communication methods provide different types of evidence that is used to create such models. Because Wave provides multiple ways to transmit that evidence, it may make it easier to model others’ minds. “Watching a Wave replay could help people to imagine what was in the minds of others,” says Watts.

User control

That may also help reduce the misunderstandings that can blight email communication, says Herring: when people don’t pick up that a comment is meant as a joke, for instance. “You have a multiplicity of channels to repair the conversation.”

Watts points out that being able to control what others infer about you is important too, though. By hiding the editing process, emails make it possible to try to control all the evidence others can use to gauge your thoughts.

Only once Wave has enough users for people to use it for real communication will we know how they will react, though.

“The designers have some control, but will also have to wait to see what usage patterns develop and respond to that” says Herring. Watts agrees: “It’s people and organisations that will ultimately determine how Wave is used.”

Read previous Innovation columns: Inside Sony’s broadcast lab, Classic computers on the danger list, Are we ready for the Autonomous Age?, Why do users fawn over Twitter’s failings?, Award-winning product design of 2009, Harnessing human nature to improve technology, When security meets surveillance, Physics brings realism to virtual reality, Smartphones need smarter networks.