Petri Piippo

Designing avatars

This document summarizes three studies on avatars leading us to propose considerations for designing avatars. A background study was conducted on earlier avatar research and the key findings are summarized in this document. Based on the background study, we conducted focus groups discussion with active online community users (who participated in social networking web sites, virtual worlds, and massively multi-player online games) to gain a better understanding of what aspects in designing avatars are important to users. From those two studies we elaborated a list of considerations topicss pointing out aspects that designers can use for avatar design. Moreover, for our avatar design project, we conducted a third study where we investigated the use of online avatar design applications. Through the analysis of this third study, we evaluated the considerations from the user point of view. In conclusion, we discuss the findings and propose a summarized list of the considerations that appear essential when designing new virtual worlds involving avatars. These design considerations concern the way avatars look, what they can do, the way they can be used for communication, the context in which they are created, how many avatars can be created and in under what kind of governance, who owns the avatar, and how to plan avatar design.

Interaction with WebVR 360° video player: Comparing three interaction paradigms

Immersive 360° video needs new ways of interaction. We compared three different interaction methods to find out which one of them is the most applicable for controlling 360° video playback. The compared methods were: remote control, pointing with head orientation, and hand gestures. A WebVR-based 360° video player was built for the experiment.

Design issues related to pie menus for 5-way joysticks

Although linear textual menus are a widely adopted solution in the mobile phone user interfaces, alternatives that would take smaller amount of screen real estate exist, e.g. toolbars and pie menus. Pie menus also provide access to functions with fewer key presses than traditional Options menu but are best suited for expert users. We compared toolbars and pie menus as a way to access most often used functions of a mobile media player. Based on user test results, we selected pie menus for implementation into a prototype and made another user test to see what kind of design considerations are related to pie menus for digital joysticks. The user feedback was positive and six design issues were identified.

Remote Expert for Assistance in a Physical Operational Task

We created a mobile asymmetric collaboration system that allows a remote expert to assist a nomadic operative in a maintenance task. We explored the use of a virtual reality headset and several cameras and controls that (1) are easy to setup by the operative on the site, (2) enable the expert to better understand the situation on the site (be more immersed) and (3) offer the expert various flexible interface options to study the environment and to act on the devices on the site independent of the operative. The preliminary results indicate that the expert appreciates the opportunity for 360 degreeview and the flexibility of using detailed controls on a close-up camera view.

[POSTER] SelfieWall: A Mixed Reality Advertising Platform

SelfieWall is a mixed reality advertising platform that is intended to capture the attention of passersby in events and venues with large crowds of people, such as in trade shows, sports events, or shopping malls. It aims to offer users with unique and fun branded experiences and allow them to share their experiences online, indirectly promoting an advertising message. The platform leverages large displays, 3D cameras, computer vision algorithms and creative content to transport the user to a virtual space by segmenting the user standing in front of the display from the background and super-imposing him/her into a layered image. A selfie of this experience is captured and can be shared on social media, or streamed in real-time to other public displays. With a very low barrier to entry, the user is motivated to visit the selfie website, share the selfie on his/her social media network and interact with the brand and messaging in the process. This paper presents the technical aspects of the end-to-end SelfieWall platform, the real-time content creation and on-site mobile calibration interfaces, and some typical real-world deployment. A demo proposal is submitted to the conference as well.