People Watcher: an app to record and analyzing spatial behavior of ubiquitous interaction technologies

In this paper we argue that interfaces embedded in the world, one of the core objectives of ubiquitous computing, require interaction designers and researchers to have a stronger understanding of the environment as an aspect of the interaction process. We suggest that the interaction community needs new tools to accurately record and, as importantly, analyze interaction in space. We present one solution: People Watcher, a freely downloadable, iPad Application, specifically designed to address the ‘usability in space’ issues. The paper reports a case study of the software’s use. We go on to encourage researchers to adopt this tool as part of the wider process of understanding the effect of the spatial context in interaction design

Which One is Me?: Identifying Oneself on Public Displays

While user representations are extensively used on public displays, it remains unclear how well users can recognize their own representation among those of surrounding users. We study the most widely used representations: abstract objects, skeletons, silhouettes and mirrors. In a prestudy (N=12), we identify five strategies that users follow to recognize themselves on public displays. In a second study (N=19), we quantify the users' recognition time and accuracy with respect to each representation type. Our findings suggest that there is a significant effect of (1) the representation type, (2) the strategies performed by users, and (3) the combination of both on recognition time and accuracy. We discuss the suitability of each representation for different settings and provide specific recommendations as to how user representations should be applied in multi-user scenarios. These recommendations guide practitioners and researchers in selecting the representation that optimizes the most for the deployment's requirements, and for the user strategies that are feasible in that environment

Virtual Field Studies: Conducting Studies on Public Displays in Virtual Reality

Field studies on public displays can be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. We investigate the feasibility of using virtual reality (VR) as a test-bed to evaluate deployments of public displays. Specifically, we investigate whether results from virtual field studies, conducted in a virtual public space, would match the results from a corresponding real-world setting. We report on two empirical user studies where we compared audience behavior around a virtual public display in the virtual world to audience behavior around a real public display. We found that virtual field studies can be a powerful research tool, as in both studies we observed largely similar behavior between the settings. We discuss the opportunities, challenges, and limitations of using virtual reality to conduct field studies, and provide lessons learned from our work that can help researchers decide whether to employ VR in their research and what factors to account for if doing so

Participation patterns of interactive playful museum exhibits: evaluating the participant journey map through situated observations

The Participant Journey Map (PJM) provides structured insight into participation with interactive play in (semi-) public environments. It supports understanding of participants’ behavior and was developed based on experiences with previously developed playful interfaces, related research and expert interviews. We apply the PJM to interactive playful museum exhibits and evaluate and refine it based on its usage in a situated context. We observed 672 play sessions with 6 interactive playful museum exhibits. The observation data was visualized and analyzed using the PJM. This study shows that the PJM provides a realistic representation of participant behaviour, can be used to identify stagnations and progressions in participation flow, and support identification of influencing design and contextual factors. With this paper we contribute by presenting the PJM as a well-grounded, valuable and realistic framework for evaluating and understanding participation with situated interactive play, based on post-hoc evaluation of multiple interfaces with many users.NWOComputer Systems, Imagery and Medi

Linee Guida e Strumenti di Authoring per Public Display

Le recenti tecnologie e la loro evoluzione consentono di acquistare display larghi e di grandi dimensioni a prezzi piuttosto bassi e accessibili da chiunque. L'obiettivo della tesi è presentare in dettaglio una serie di linee guida per la progettazione di interfacce utente per display pubblici, mostrando alcune applicazioni in cui tali principi possono essere sfruttati. La definizione di un insieme di design pattern, inoltre, ha permesso di evidenziare gli aspetti più importanti dell'intero processo di progettazione, mettendoli in relazione con il contesto e i contenuti presentati nel display. La tesi introduce anche le funzionalità principali del tool di authoring, sviluppato ad hoc, per supportare i vari principi di progettazione e di pubblicazione delle informazioni su tali dispositivi. Infine, la validazione delle linee guida e la verifica del livello di usabilità dello strumento ottenuto sono state ricavate tramite due test di utenti basati, rispettivamente, su un questionario online e sullo svolgimento di task

Quantifying the interaction stages of a public display campaign in the wild

In this paper we present the findings from three exploratory studies in the wild of an interactive public display aiming to increase awareness on cardiac arrest and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). Three different locations (train station, hospital, and university restaurant) were selected in order to understand how context affects the effectiveness of the real-life campaign. For this purpose, we defined and quantified different interaction phases based on the audience funnel and the characteristics of the prototype. Our results confirm that context (location and people) have a direct effect on engagement throughout the interaction phases. A location that clearly relates to the content of a campaign or has an audience that is able and willing to interact will positively influence the outcome of a campaign. In addition, we show that following a model to quantify and compare studies is a feasible and useful approach.status: publishe