Remote presence: supporting deictic gestures through a handheld multi-touch device

This thesis argues on the possibility of supporting deictic gestures through handheld multi-touch devices in remote presentation scenarios. In [1], Clark distinguishes indicative techniques of placing-for and directing-to, where placing-for refers to placing a referent into the addressee’s attention, and directing-to refers to directing the addressee’s attention towards a referent. Keynote, PowerPoint, FuzeMeeting and others support placing-for efficiently with slide transitions, and animations, but support limited to none directing-to. The traditional “pointing feature” present in some presentation tools comes as a virtual laser pointer or mouse cursor. [12, 13] have shown that the mouse cursor and laser pointer offer very little informational expressiveness and do not do justice to human communicative gestures. In this project, a prototype application was implemented for the iPad in order to explore, develop, and test the concept of pointing in remote presentations. The prototype offers visualizing and navigating the slides as well as “pointing” and zooming. To further investigate the problem and possible solutions, a theoretical framework was designed representing the relationships between the presenter’s intention and gesture and the resulting visual effect (cursor) that enables the audience members to interpret the meaning of the effect and the presenter’s intention. Two studies were performed to investigate people’s appreciation of different ways of presenting remotely. An initial qualitative study was performed at The Hague, followed by an online quantitative user experiment. The results indicate that subjects found pointing to be helpful in understanding and concentrating, while the detached video feed of the presenter was considered to be distracting. The positive qualities of having the video feed were the emotion and social presence that it adds to the presentations. For a number of subjects, pointing displayed some of the same social and personal qualities [2] that video affords, while less intensified. The combination of pointing and video proved to be successful with 10-out-of-19 subjects scoring it the highest while pointing example came at a close 8-out-of-19. Video was the least preferred with only one subject preferring it. We suggest that the research performed here could provide a basis for future research and possibly be applied in a variety of distributed collaborative settings.Universidade da Madeira - Madeira Interactive Technologies Institut

SemanticCollage: Enriching Digital Mood Board Design with Semantic Labels

International audienceDesigners create inspirational mood boards to express their design ideas visually, through collages of images and text. They find appropriate images and reflect on them as they explore emergent design concepts. After presenting the results of a participatory design workshop and a survey of professional designers, we introduce SemanticCollage, a digital mood board tool that attaches semantic labels to images by applying a state- of-the-art semantic labeling algorithm. SemanticCollage helps designers to 1) translate vague, visual ideas into search terms; 2) make better sense of and communicate their designs; while 3) not disrupting their creative flow. A structured observation with 12 professional designers demonstrated how semantic labels help designers successfully guide image search and find relevant words that articulate their abstract, visual ideas. We conclude by discussing how SemanticCollage inspires new uses of semantic labels for supporting creative practice

An interactive support tool to convey the intended message in asynchronous presentations

In this paper we introduce an interactive wall-mounted display tool that supports conveying the intended message or ideas in asynchronous presentations. The tool allows to easily record presentations while capturing the richness of the presenter’s individual presentation skills and style. The tool records the presentation and organizes it into three information layers (i.e. gesture, sound and visuals), which are first used to segment the presentation into meaningful parts, and later to control the playback of audiovisual presentations. Once recorded, the presentation can be played back, explored and commented using a flexible and intuitive interaction based on hand movements and body position (i.e. proximity). We focus our work on a case study where designers present their mood boards (i.e. collages) to their clients. Evaluations with professional designers show that they are able to use the tool with no prior training, see a practical use of the proposed tool in their design studios, and see gesture trails as a creative tool for expression and aesthetics

The quality of design participation : intersubjectivity in design practice

Author name used in this publication: Denny K. L. Ho2011-2012 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Increasing Passersby Engagement with Public Large Interactive Surfaces

Despite the proliferation of Public Large Interactive Surfaces (PLISs), and their potential to provide a more engaging and interactive user experience, these surfaces often go unnoticed by passersby, or not immediately comprehensible in terms of usage. Current research in addressing this problem involves modeling the user-surface interaction through observational studies, and deriving recommendations for interface design to facilitate the interaction. This approach is often context-specific, requires elaborate setup, and lacks experimental control. To mitigate this problem, an interaction model, named DISCOVER, was developed by drawing ideas from classic usability research and focusing on the discoverability aspect of the interaction. This approach allows the model to serve as a lens for understanding and synthesizing existing work on PLISs, and to be used as an evaluation framework to assess effectiveness of potential designs. To accompany this evaluation capability, a laboratory-based evaluation methodology was developed to allow researchers to quickly implement and evaluate potential designs, particularly for the early stages of interaction that precede the more commonly studied explicit and direct interaction (e.g., touches, mid-air gestures). Using the model and the evaluation methodology, a proximity-based interaction mechanism using animated content and shadow visualizations was designed and evaluated as an effective technique in drawing attention from unknowing study participants. A follow-up, more conventional in-the-wild study also verified this finding, and further demonstrated the usefulness of shadow visualizations in drawing attention from passersby, retaining them, and enticing playful interaction. The goal of this thesis is to better equip researchers and practitioners of PLISs with tools that allow them to evaluate and improve existing interfaces, and to provide them with insights into designing future ones employing better and more engaging technologies

Storied design : narrative matters in design presentation

Presenting a design can be straightforward, when it concerns an object that can be brought into the room' for demonstration. In the fields of interaction and service design, however, the object of design typically cannot be presented this way. Rather, a disposition needs to be developed that pertains to both a design as well as its narrative counterpart, in order to represent the design in a particular way - its outcome being a storied design. This thesis is a study of the structure of design presentations given to a general audience in the fields of interaction and service design. The purpose is to clarify what is involved in presenting a design in these fields of design practice and, through this clarification, explore how it differs from a more conventional product design presentation. It establishes the concept of storied design, which is arrived at through the empirical study of a set of video recordings of design presentations. The study looks closely at how interaction and service designers talk, argue, represent and explain their designs. A theory emerges through a process of grounded theory in which the concepts of storied design are successively elaborated. This study draws from, and contributes to, design research concerning the role of narrative, storytelling and the use of visual material in design, with a focus on interaction and service design practice. The resulting theory explains why an interaction or service design presentation relies on representations of the object of design, rather than a demonstration of the actual object. It shows that such an object does not ‘speak for itself’ but is given meaning through a narrative that needs to be designated; that the designation of such a narrative is key to constituting how the object is to be understood by a given audience; and that such a narrative can be various and is not necessarily determined by the object, although it may remain conditioned by the object. The theory is further put to use in showing how design methods provide the narrative means, which are mobilized in support of representing the object of design in various ways during presentation. It draws attention to the conclusion that the interaction or service design itself may only exist in the collection of representations and can be understood as a storied design. The theory allows for distinctions to be drawn in storied design practices between interaction and service design presentations and more conventional product design presentations. This distinction to interaction and service design presentations allows for further exploration on how the development of a storied design and to what degree the scope of what is storied about the object of design pertains to a strategic value in indicating what can and cannot be designed about it