Enhancing fan experience during live sports broadcasts through second screen applications

When sports fans attend live sports events, they usually engage in social experiences with friends, family members and other fans at the venue sharing the same affiliation. However, fans watching the same event through a live television broadcast end up not feeling so emotionally connected with the athletes and other fans as they would if they were watching it live, together with thousands of other fans. With this in mind, we seek to create mobile applications that deliver engaging social experiences involving remote fans watching live broadcasted sports events. Taking into account the growing use of mobile devices when watching TV broadcasts, these mobile applications explore the second screen concept, which allows users to interact with content that complements the TV broadcast. Within this context, we present a set of second screen application prototypes developed to test our concepts, the corresponding user studies and results, as well as suggestions on how to apply the prototypes’ concepts not only in different sports, but also during TV shows and electronic sports. Finally, we also present the challenges we faced and the guidelines we followed during the development and evaluation phases, which may give a considerable contribution to the development of future second screen applications for live broadcasted events

Mobile persuasive interfaces for public ambient displays

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia InformáticaThrough the use of persuasive technology, it is possible to influence the attitudes and behaviors of people in order to lead them to perform actions that, probably, they would not do otherwise. Thus, this technology can be used in several domains such as health, education, business, safety and environment in order to obtain positive changes. This dissertation aims to bring awareness of the consequences of users’ actions on the natural resources of our planet, which are not infinite. Therefore, it was designed and implemented Gaea, a prototype that introduces new forms of interaction between mobile devices and public ambient displays, allied to the use of persuasive technology. Gaea allows users to recycle virtual objects spread on a geographical area, using a mobile device to locate and collect the virtual objects that should be dropped on the correct virtual recycle bins, that are available when near the public ambient display. It is also studied the impact of this type of interaction in the users’ environmental behavior, and if the use of persuasion through social networks has an impact on the popularity of the prototype. The results obtained were very positive, and may give a considerable contribution to the future development of pervasive applications, that increase people awareness and influence a large number of people to change their attitudes and behaviors, regardless the area of study

Synchronising Live Second Screen Applications with TV Broadcasts Through User Feedback

International audienceA common issue on live sports TV broadcasts happens when a viewer hears a neighbour screaming a goal before watching it on his TV. Similarly, viewers will also have a disruptive experience if a second screen application, designed to present information synchronised with the live TV broadcast, displays information beforehand. This paper presents a simple and universal synchronisation mechanism for second screen mobile applications, which does not rely on automatic content recognition, but rather on user feedback to help users achieve a pleasant and effective second screen experience. Results from user tests helped validate our approach, as users were able to synchronise a mobile application with a simulated live TV broadcast, with different delays