Investigating Data Exploration Techniques Involving Map Based Geotagged Data in a Collaborative Sensemaking Environment

The recent advancement in Global Positioning Systems (GPS) using satellite and geotagging has opened many opportunities for data-driven decision-making in fields such as emergency response, military intelligence, oil exploration and urban planning. The enormity and explosion of geospatial data necessitates the development of improved tools to support analysis and decision-making around this complex data – a process often known as sensemaking. A typical geotagged map can have hundreds of data points that are multi-dimensional, with each point having meaningful information associated with its location, as well as project specific information e.g., photographs, graphs, charts, bulletin data among many other information parameters. Sensemaking activities involving such complex data often involve a team of trained professionals who aim to make sense of this data to answer specific sets of questions, and make key decisions. Researchers are currently exploring the use of surface computing technology, such as, interactive digital tabletops and touch-based tablets to form methodologies to enhance collaborative sensemaking. This thesis examined the impact of two multi-surface interaction techniques that allowed individual group members to explore detailed geotagged data on separate peripheral tablets while sharing a large geographical overview on a digital tabletop. The two interaction techniques differed in the type of user input needed to control the location on the tabletop overview of a bounded “region of interest” (ROI) corresponding to the geotagged data displayed on the personal tablets. One technique (TOUCH) required the ROI to be positioned on the tabletop using direct touch interaction. The other technique (TILT) required the ROI to be positioned via 3-dimensional (up-down, left-right) tilt-gesture made with the personal tablet. Findings from the study revealed that the effectiveness of the respective interaction techniques depended on the stage of sensemaking process, and on which collaboration strategy groups employed during collaborative sensemaking

Group vs Individual: Impact of TOUCH and TILT Cross-Device Interactions on Mixed-Focus Collaboration

Cross-device environments (XDEs) have been devel-oped to support a multitude of collaborative activities. Yet, little is known about how different cross-device in-teraction techniques impact group collaboration; in-cluding their impact on independent and joint work that often occur during group work. In this work, we explore the impact of two XDE data browsing tech-niques: TOUCH and TILT. Through a mixed-methods study of a collaborative sensemaking task, we show that TOUCH and TILT have distinct impacts on how groups accomplish, and shift between, independent and joint work. Finally, we reflect on these findings and how they can more generally inform the design of XDEs.NSER

Investigating device‐specific visual feedback for cross‐device transfer in table‐centric multisurface environments

International audienceTable‐centric multisurface environments (T‐MSEs) that combine small multitouch surfaces (eg, smartphones and tablets) with large interactive tabletops provide people with both personal and shared workspaces to support various independent and collective tasks during group activities. This paper reports on the third in a series of studies exploring how existing interaction methods for cross‐device transfer, such as the Pick‐and‐Drop (P&D) method, can be adapted to table‐centric multisurface environment settings. The study examined the use of device‐specific visual feedback to improve users' awareness of transferred content during P&D transfer. The tabletop feedback utilized the existing Surface Ghosts P&D feedback approach (ie, “ghosted” versions of transferred content were displayed in real time under the user's hand). The tablet feedback consisted of a static “Tablet Bridge” feedback showing miniature versions of transferred content along the top edge of the tablet interface. The study found that providing both types of feedback significantly improved users' transfer awareness over providing Surface Ghosts feedback alone. It also revealed that the Tablet Bridge feedback helped compensate for technical and usability issues associated with the Surface Ghosts feedback design. Lessons learned from our combined series of cross‐device transfer studies are reflected upon, and relevant design implications are discussed

Surface Ghosts

Rekimoto's Pick-and-Drop (P&D) transfer technique is commonly used to support multi-surface object transfer (e.g., between a shared tabletop and tablet) due to its easily understood metaphor of emulating object movement in the physical world. Current multi-surface implementations of P&D provide little to no feedback during transfer, causing confusion for the person performing the action as well as others in the environment. To address this issue, we investigated the use of virtual embodiments to improve awareness of transferred objects, in the context of a real-world group task that relied heavily on cross-device transfer. An iterative design process led to the design of Surface Ghosts virtual embodiments, which take the form of semi-transparent 'ghosts' of the transferred objects displayed under the "owner's" hand on the tabletop during transfer. A user study that compared two Surface Ghosts designs-varied by how explicitly the "owner" was indicated-showed that both designs improved awareness of transferred objects when compared to a no-feedback control condition, especially for tabletop-to-tablet transfers.Ye

Comparing visual feedback techniques for object transfer between private and shared surfaces

The increasing trend toward multi-device ecologies that provide private and shared digital surfaces introduces a need for effective cross-device object transfer interaction mechanisms. This work-in-progress paper investigates visual feedback techniques for enhancing the usability of the Pick-and-Drop cross-device object transfer technique when used between a shared digital table and private tablets. We propose two visual feedback designs aimed to improve awareness of virtual objects during a Pick-and-Drop transfer. Initial results from a comparative user study are presented and discussed, along with directions for future work.Ye