Beyond the Watercooler: Designing for Computer-Mediated Self-Disclosure among Work Colleagues

Self-disclosure, the sharing of personal and professional information about yourself, can help foster and maintain working relationships. But how do computers mediate the way we self-disclose at work? We look "beyond the watercooler" to investigate computermediated self-disclosure (CMSD) at work. We conducted two studies: (1) a survey (n=455 knowledge workers) to understand perceptions towards disclosing various information types among colleagues, and (2) an interview study (n=12 knowledge workers) with five speculative design concepts to characterize attitudes and needs around CMSD. Study 1 indicated sharing about well-being was valuable, but that it was less familiar among remote workers compared to those in-person or hybrid. Study 1 informed the design concepts for Study 2, whose findings revealed that CMSD is a key part of workers' socialization and should evolve alongside relationship stages. We discuss design opportunities for adaptive, intentional, and personal CMSD, along with policy implications for organizations.

• Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI; Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing.