An Exploratory Study of Storytelling Using Digital Tabletops

Storytelling is a powerful means of communication that has been employed by humankind from the early stages of development. As technology has advanced, the medium through which people tell stories has evolved from verbal, to writing, performing on stage, and more recently television, movies, and video games. A promising medium for the telling of stories in an in-person, one-on-one or one-to-many setting is a digital table—a large, horizontal multi-touch surface—that can provide quick access to visuals and narrative elements at the touch of one’s hands and fingers. In this work, I present the results of an exploratory study on storytellers’ interaction behaviours while working with digital tables, and its physical counterparts of sand and water. My results highlight some of the differences in these media that can both help and hinder a storyteller’s narrative process. I use these findings to present design implications for the design of applications for storytelling on digital multi-touch surfaces

SandCanvas: A Multi-touch Art Medium Inspired by Sand Animation

10.1145/1978942.1979133Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings1283-129

User-Defined Gestures with Physical Props in Virtual Reality

©2021 Association for Computing Machinery. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, https://doi.org/10.1145/3486954.When interacting with virtual reality (VR) applications like CAD and open-world games, people may want to use gestures as a means of leveraging their knowledge from the physical world. However, people may prefer physical props over handheld controllers to input gestures in VR. We present an elicitation study where 21 participants chose from 95 props to perform manipulative gestures for 20 CAD-like and open-world game-like referents. When analyzing this data, we found existing methods for elicitation studies were insufficient to describe gestures with props, or to measure agreement with prop selection (i.e., agreement between sets of items). We proceeded by describing gestures as context-free grammars, capturing how different props were used in similar roles in a given gesture. We present gesture and prop agreement scores using a generalized agreement score that we developed to compare multiple selections rather than a single selection. We found that props were selected based on their resemblance to virtual objects and the actions they afforded; that gesture and prop agreement depended on the referent, with some referents leading to similar gesture choices, while others led to similar prop choices; and that a small set of carefully chosen props can support multiple gestures.NSERC, Discovery Grant 2016-04422 || NSERC, Discovery Grant 2019-06589 || NSERC, Discovery Accelerator Grant 492970-2016 || NSERC, CREATE Saskatchewan-Waterloo Games User Research (SWaGUR) Grant 479724-2016 || Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities, Ontario Early Researcher Award ER15-11-18

User-Defined Gestures with Physical Props in Virtual Reality

When building virtual reality (VR) environments, designers use physical props to improve immersion and realism. However, people may want to perform actions that would not be supported by physical objects, for example, duplicating an object in a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) program or darkening the sky in an open-world game. In this thesis, I present an elicitation study where I asked 21 participants to choose from 95 props to perform manipulative gestures for 20 referents (actions), typically found in CAD software or open-world games. I describe the resulting gestures as context-free grammars, capturing the actions taken by our participants, their prop choices, and how the props were used in each gesture. I present agreement scores between gesture choices and prop choices; to accomplish the latter, I developed a generalized agreement score that compares sets of selections rather than a single selection, enabling new types of elicitation studies. I found that props were selected according to their resemblance to virtual objects and the actions they afforded; that gesture and prop agreement depended on the referent, with some referents leading to similar gesture choices, while others led to similar prop choices; and that a small set of carefully chosen props can support a wide variety of gestures

Magic Land design and the use of interactive tabletops in non-directive play therapy with primary school children :to play or not to play?

PhD ThesisThis research considers the role and design of digital technologies in play therapy settings with young children. Through an aggregation of academic and practitioner literature, and the results of focus group and individual interviews with therapists and counsellors, a set of design requirements for digital technologies that support non-directive play within a play therapy context is proposed. The study explores how these complex requirements could support non-directive play therapy principles through the development and evaluation of Magic Land, a set of four play therapy applications for an interactive tabletop. On the basis of the qualitative research evidence, it is suggested that the design guidelines should be deeply rooted in the theoretical foundations of non-directive play therapy and reflect a number of psychoanalytic and child social development theories. The concepts developed in two opposing schools of thought by Piaget and Vygotsky are used to guide the design and map the research findings. Taking into account the children’s interest in technology, the therapists’ skills, the affordances of the technology and the design guidelines aligned with the core theories of play therapy, it was found that the Magic Land application on an interactive tabletop could support such non-directive play therapy principles as the development of a trusting therapeutic relationship, a child’s creative expression and the gradual nature of the therapeutic process. It created opportunities for children to practise exercising a feeling of mastery and taking the initiative, as well as allowing for joyful and non-goal oriented free play

The effectiveness of sandplay therapy with a Xhosa child

This case study sought to determine whether Kalffian Sandtray Therapy was effective with a Xhosa child. In the context of ongoing discussions surrounding evidence-based practice and culturally appropriate interventions, no published research has yet explored the effectiveness of this classical tool within this significant South African demographic. In an effort to address this omission, the research adopted a mixed methods approach where Kalffian analysis of the sandplay process was evaluated in conjunction with quantitative measures (the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Young Person’s Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation). The results of this triangulation revealed a complex picture of improved interpersonal functioning and stagnant (or worsened) emotional wellbeing after five sessions. Contextualised interpretations of these findings are discussed and recommendations made for future sandplay practice and research in the South African context

Waves: A Collaborative Navigation Technique for Large Interactive Surfaces

Digital tables offer the possibility of performing collaborative tasks where two or more people can share artifacts in the same virtual space. However, most interactive methods of navigating through virtual space most commonly have the effect of changing the entire digital display simultaneously. In this thesis, I performed an exploratory study providing evidence for differences between two popular collaborative navigation techniques used in video games, split screens and single shared screen, in situational awareness, interference between collaborators, and difficulties with automatic view adjustment. Drawing inspiration from guidelines formulated from the results of the exploratory study, as well as previous work in interactive tabletops, collaboration, and navigation in information visualization, I designed and implemented Waves, a collaborative navigation technique for the tabletop. Waves simultaneously supports multiple personal workspaces, provides group workspace awareness, and mediates interference between workspaces

Health Privilege and the Invisible Elephants of Chronic Illness and Pain

Unlike other -isms and privileges, issues surrounding ableism and health privilege tend to draw less focus and thus are examined less in classrooms and clinical settings. Even when health privilege is the topic, less observable issues, such as chronic illness and chronic pain, tend to be omitted. This session intends to shed light on these hidden diversities, providing space for education, discussion, and reflection in an attempt to make the invisible visible