Designing mobile experiences for collocated interaction

Many of our everyday social interactions involve mobile devices. Yet, these tend to only provide good support for distributed social interactions. Although much HCI and CSCW research has explored how we might support collocated, face-to-face situations using mobile devices, much of this work exists as isolated exemplars of technical systems and / or interaction designs. This paper draws on a range of such exemplars to develop a practical design framework intended for guiding the design of new mobile experiences for collocated interaction as well as analysing existing ones. Our framework provides four relational perspectives for designing the complex interplay between: the social situation in which it takes place; the technology used and the mechanics inscribed; the physical environment; and the temporal elements of design. Moreover, each perspective is features some core properties, which are highly relevant when designing these systems. As part of presenting the framework we also explain the process of its construction along with practical advice on how to read and apply it

Examining the role of smart TVs and VR HMDs in synchronous at-a-distance media consumption

This article examines synchronous at-a-distance media consumption from two perspectives: How it can be facilitated using existing consumer displays (through TVs combined with smartphones), and imminently available consumer displays (through virtual reality (VR) HMDs combined with RGBD sensing). First, we discuss results from an initial evaluation of a synchronous shared at-a-distance smart TV system, CastAway. Through week-long in-home deployments with five couples, we gain formative insights into the adoption and usage of at-a-distance media consumption and how couples communicated during said consumption. We then examine how the imminent availability and potential adoption of consumer VR HMDs could affect preferences toward how synchronous at-a-distance media consumption is conducted, in a laboratory study of 12 pairs, by enhancing media immersion and supporting embodied telepresence for communication. Finally, we discuss the implications these studies have for the near-future of consumer synchronous at-a-distance media consumption. When combined, these studies begin to explore a design space regarding the varying ways in which at-a-distance media consumption can be supported and experienced (through music, TV content, augmenting existing TV content for immersion, and immersive VR content), what factors might influence usage and adoption and the implications for supporting communication and telepresence during media consumption

ECOLINGUISTICALLY INFORMED CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL SPEECH ON CLIMATE CHANGE POLICIES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This study uses a mixed-methods approach to explore how climate change is conceptualized in the politics of the United States from the perspective of Ecolinguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. I analyzed all the statements and letters issued by the governors and mayors who opposed the American president, Donald Trump, when he announced that he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement that 195 countries around the world signed. The qualitative analysis employs Critical Metaphor Analysis to investigate politicians metaphorical choices made to influence public opinion and influence policies about climate change in the U.S. These types of metaphors reinforce the rhetoric that creates climate change as an ongoing process where politicians construct and hold sociopolitical views through discursive use of metaphor. This is followed by a corpus analysis to investigate the changes in the discourse about climate change in the media before and after Donald Trumps announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement in 2017. The results indicate that climate change is mainly framed as a long-term and threatening problem that policy makers should seriously deal with. This study can guide us to identify which politicians/groups make climate change a top priority. That is, politicians/groups that predominately use metaphors from certain source domains such as Journey, War and Construction on climate change are more concerned about climate change than politicians/groups that use metaphors from domains such as Unfairness and Business. This is because metaphors drawn from the source domains of War, Journey, Cleanliness and Construction emphasize dealing with climate change since they imply calling for action to address this problem. Metaphors drawn from Business, on the other hand, restrain action on climate change since they create excuses for delaying action or even not dealing with this environmental problem. However, it is not only what domain a metaphor is drawn from can determine if a politician/group (using that metaphor) supports or denounces responding to climate change (dealing with the problem as a top priority or not) but also this depends on what the purpose behind using that metaphor is

QUALINET white paper on definitions of Immersive Media Experience (IMEx)

With the coming of age of virtual/augmented reality and interactive media, numerous definitions, frameworks, and models of immersion have emerged across different fields ranging from computer graphics to literary works. Immersion is oftentimes used interchangeably with presence as both concepts are closely related. However, there are noticeable interdisciplinary differences regarding definitions, scope, and constituents that are required to be addressed so that a coherent understanding of the concepts can be achieved. Such consensus is vital for paving the directionality of the future of immersive media experiences (IMEx) and all related matters. The aim of this white paper is to provide a survey of definitions of immersion and presence which leads to a definition of immersive media experience (IMEx). The Quality of Experience (QoE) for immersive media is described by establishing a relationship between the concepts of QoE and IMEx followed by application areas of immersive media experience. Influencing factors on immersive media experience are elaborated as well as the assessment of immersive media experience. Finally, standardization activities related to IMEx are highlighted and the white paper is concluded with an outlook related to future developments

Creative idea exploration within the structure of a guiding framework : the card brainstorming game

I present a card brainstorming exercise that transforms a conceptual tangible interaction framework into a tool for creative dialogue and discuss the experiences made in using it. Ten sessions with this card game demonstrate the frameworks' versatility and utility. Observation and participant feedback highlight the value of a provocative question format and of the metaphor of a card game

Innovation Gaming: An Immersive Experience Environment Enabling Co-creation

A number of existing innovation paradigms and design approaches such as Open Innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), User Experience (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006) and User-Centred Design (Von Hippel, 2005), as well as User-Centred Open Innovation Ecosystems (Pallot, 2009a) are promoting distributed collaboration among organisations and user communities. However, project stakeholders are mainly trained for improving their individual skills through learning experience (i.e. practical exercises, role playing game) rather than getting a live user experience through immersive environments (e.g. Virtual Reality, Serious Games) that could unleash their creativity potential. This chapter introduces the findings of a study on serious gaming, which discusses various aspects of games and explores a number of issues related to the use of innovation games for enabling user co-creation in the context of collaborative innovation and experiential Living Labs

Acting rehearsal in collaborative multimodal mixed reality environments

This paper presents the use of our multimodal mixed reality telecommunication system to support remote acting rehearsal. The rehearsals involved two actors, located in London and Barcelona, and a director in another location in London. This triadic audiovisual telecommunication was performed in a spatial and multimodal collaborative mixed reality environment based on the 'destination-visitor' paradigm, which we define and put into use. We detail our heterogeneous system architecture, which spans the three distributed and technologically asymmetric sites, and features a range of capture, display, and transmission technologies. The actors' and director's experience of rehearsing a scene via the system are then discussed, exploring successes and failures of this heterogeneous form of telecollaboration. Overall, the common spatial frame of reference presented by the system to all parties was highly conducive to theatrical acting and directing, allowing blocking, gross gesture, and unambiguous instruction to be issued. The relative inexpressivity of the actors' embodiments was identified as the central limitation of the telecommunication, meaning that moments relying on performing and reacting to consequential facial expression and subtle gesture were less successful

Living Without a Mobile Phone: An Autoethnography

This paper presents an autoethnography of my experiences living without a mobile phone. What started as an experiment motivated by a personal need to reduce stress, has resulted in two voluntary mobile phone breaks spread over nine years (i.e., 2002-2008 and 2014-2017). Conducting this autoethnography is the means to assess if the lack of having a phone has had any real impact in my life. Based on formative and summative analyses, four meaningful units or themes were identified (i.e., social relationships, everyday work, research career, and location and security), and judged using seven criteria for successful ethnography from existing literature. Furthermore, I discuss factors that allow me to make the choice of not having a mobile phone, as well as the relevance that the lessons gained from not having a mobile phone have on the lives of people who are involuntarily disconnected from communication infrastructures.Comment: 12 page

Project Management Skills for Highly Successful Virtual Project Teams

Virtual project teams gained wider acceptance in organizations over the past 30 years, supported by improved communications technology and spurred by global competition. Virtual working arrangements provide benefits to employers, employees, and the environment. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021 stimulated the transition from traditional to virtual project teams. Project management in the virtual environment requires different skills than leading in the collocated environment. Skills that lead to successful project outcomes in the traditional environment do not simply transfer to the virtual environment. Project managers must focus on new skills, especially those that contribute to developing open communication and building trust. This qualitative case study examined the problem that some project managers lack the skills to lead in the virtual environment, resulting in reduced project efficiency, productivity, and overall success. This case study also filled a gap in the literature, providing real-world best practices of project management leadership skills applied in the virtual environment. Seventeen (17) virtual project team managers and project team members from the MITRE Corporation, a leader in the government contracting industry, shared their experiences leading successful project teams. Through semi-structured interviews, coding, and analysis, five main themes emerged: Importance of Communication to the Success of Virtual Project Teams, Importance of Trust on the Performance of Virtual Project Teams, The Effective Implementation of Technology is Foundational to the Success of Virtual Project Teams, Virtual Project Teams Create Advantages, and Virtual Project Teams Present Challenges. The practical application of these themes resulted in nine lessons learned. Understanding these themes and applying the lessons learned should improve the practice of project management, general business, and virtual project success