Mark McGill

Mirror, mirror, on the wall: collaborative screen-mirroring for small groups

Screen mirroring has been available to consumers for some time, however if every mobile device in the room supports screen mirroring to the main display (e.g. a shared TV), this necessitates a mechanism for managing its use. As such, this paper investigates allowing users in small intimacy groups (friends, family etc.) to self-manage mirrored use of the display, through passing/taking/requesting the display from whomever is currently mirroring to it. We examine the collaborative benefits this scheme could provide for the home, compared to existing multi-device use and existing screen mirroring implementations. Results indicate shared screen mirroring improves perceived collaboration, decreases dominance, preserves independence and has a positive effect on a groups activity awareness.

I Am The Passenger: How Visual Motion Cues Can Influence Sickness For In-Car VR

This paper explores the use of VR Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) in-car and in-motion for the first time. Immersive HMDs are becoming everyday consumer items and, as they offer new possibilities for entertainment and productivity, people will want to use them during travel in, for example, autonomous cars. However, their use is confounded by motion sickness caused in-part by the restricted visual perception of motion conflicting with physically perceived vehicle motion (accelerations/rotations detected by the vestibular system). Whilst VR HMDs restrict visual perception of motion, they could also render it virtually, potentially alleviating sensory conflict. To study this problem, we conducted the first on-road and in motion study to systematically investigate the effects of various visual presentations of the real-world motion of a car on the sickness and immersion of VR HMD wearing passengers. We established new baselines for VR in-car motion sickness, and found that there is no one best presentation with respect to balancing sickness and immersion. Instead, user preferences suggest different solutions are required for differently susceptible users to provide usable VR in-car. This work provides formative insights for VR designers and an entry point for further research into enabling use of VR HMDs, and the rich experiences they offer, when travelling.

A review of collocated multi-user TV

AbstractThe TV plays a central role in our homes, bringing friends and family together by providing a common reference point for live, on-demand and interactive media. However, the capabilities of the modern day TV poorly reflect this social, multi-user context. The TV is in the process of being supplemented, and in some cases replaced, by other devices and displays (e.g. phones, tablets) in what is termed “multi-screening”. This allows users to engage in separate and private activities alongside TV usage. The result of this is that users are “together alone” inhabiting private digital bubbles, their activity and interactions cut off from those around them. This paper outlines why facilitating multi-user use of the TV is important within the context of existing multi-screen usage, and reviews how we might go about designing TVs that better support the social contexts in which they reside. Firstly, we discuss how we interact with and share use of the TV, before examining how our TV usage has been augmented by multi-screening. We then review designs for multi-user TV: from shared-use TV interfaces, to using the TV as a medium by which multi-screen activity can be shared, to TVs capable of providing multiple independent physical views, allowing for both private and collaborative activities on a single shared display. Finally, we discuss new technologies that might have a part to play in determining the future role of the TV. This paper demonstrates that, contrary to existing usage, the TV can be of increasing relevance in the multi-user, multi-screen era.

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.

Lost in the rift: engaging with mixed reality

Virtual reality users are torn between the real and virtual worlds. Determining how, and when, to show elements of reality in a virtual view is key to providing usable VR experiences.

How to lose friends & alienate people: sharing control of a single-user TV system

The single physical remote control, paired to a media system, is no longer necessarily the only (or indeed primary) mechanism of control, with new input modalities (e.g. gesture) and mechanisms (e.g. mobile devices) allowing anyone to contribute to the input and control. This paper investigates the potential for extending single-user interfaces in order to support multi-user use, as a means of utilizing new inputs without having to abandon the familiar interfaces, control management behaviours and mental models that users have established. A survey was conducted investigating existing behaviours for managing control in terms of prevalence and acceptability. These behaviours and potential new ones were then incorporated into a multi-user system where management of control was virtualized, using mobile devices for input. We found that behaviours derived from existing ones (e.g. passing/taking control) were at worst functionally equivalent to, and in some cases superior to, managing a single physical remote control. We suggest that sharing single-user TV systems implementing these behaviours offers a viable alternative to concurrent use TV systems.

It Takes Two (To Co-View): Collaborative Multi-View TV

This paper investigates how we can design interfaces and interactions for multi-view TVs, enabling users to transition between independent and shared activity, dynamically control awareness of other users activities, and collaborate more effectively on shared activities. We conducted two user studies, first comparing an Android-based two-user TV against both multi-screen and multi-view TVs. Based on our findings, we iterated on our design, giving users the ability to dynamically set their engagement with other users activity. We provide the foundations of a multi-user multi-view smart TV that can support users to transition between independent and shared activity and gain awareness of the activities of others, on a single shared TV that no longer suffers the bottleneck of one physical view. Through this we significantly improve upon a users capability for collaborative and independent activity compared to single-view smart TVs.

Object Manipulation in Virtual Reality Under Increasing Levels of Translational Gain

Room-scale Virtual Reality (VR) has become an affordable consumer reality, with applications ranging from entertainment to productivity. However, the limited physical space available for room-scale VR in the typical home or office environment poses a significant problem. To solve this, physical spaces can be extended by amplifying the mapping of physical to virtual movement (translational gain). Although amplified movement has been used since the earliest days of VR, little is known about how it influences reach-based interactions with virtual objects, now a standard feature of consumer VR. Consequently, this paper explores the picking and placing of virtual objects in VR for the first time, with translational gains of between 1x (a one-to-one mapping of a 3.5m*3.5m virtual space to the same sized physical space) and 3x (10.5m*10.5m virtual mapped to 3.5m*3.5m physical). Results show that reaching accuracy is maintained for up to 2x gain, however going beyond this diminishes accuracy and increases simulator sickness and perceived workload. We suggest gain levels of 1.5x to 1.75x can be utilized without compromising the usability of a VR task, significantly expanding the bounds of interactive room-scale VR.

How Visual Motion Cues Can Influence Sickness For In-Car VR

This video demonstrates our research into the use of VR Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) in-car and in-motion. Immersive HMDs offer new possibilities for entertainment and productivity during travel. However, their use is confounded by motion sickness, caused in-part by the conflict between visually and physically perceived motion. We examine how visual conveyance of motion affects motion sickness during in-car VR.

I Am The Passenger: Challenges in Supporting AR/VR HMDs In-Motion

This video provides an overview of our research into the use of Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) in-car and in-motion. These immersive HMDs offer new possibilities for entertainment and productivity during travel. However, their use is confounded by motion sickness, caused in-part by the conflict between visually and physically perceived motion. Moreover, consumer HMDs cannot currently distinguish between the head motion of the wearer and rotations of the car. These problems represent significant impediments to their use in-motion, which our research aims to overcome.