Victor Cheung

Communication channels and awareness cues in collocated collaborative time-critical gaming

During collaborative gameplay players make use of various methods to become aware of the overall game status, develop strategies, and convey information to other players. Efficient and effective use of these methods is essential, especially during fast-paced time-critical collaborative games such as first-person shooters. This paper presents an observational study aimed to understand the communication channels and awareness cues used by players during gameplay to collaboratively achieve the game objectives. The study revealed that players utilize a variety of unconventional communication channels and awareness cues in both the physical and virtual environments to compensate for the inability to use commonly available collaborative human interaction mechanisms, such as eye gaze and gesturing, during gameplay. Players tended to use only auditory cues from their partner in the physical environment, while relying heavily on interacting with their partner through the virtual environment, using a variety of central and peripheral cues to maintain awareness during gameplay. Implications of these findings are discussed and recommendations for improving the quality of gameplay are provided.

Revisiting hovering: interaction guides for interactive surfaces

Current touch-based interactive surfaces rely heavily on a trial-and-error approach for guiding users through the interaction process. In contrast, the legacy WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) paradigm employs various methods to provide user assistance. A commonly used strategy is the use of mouse hovering. This research explores how this strategy can be adapted and expanded to user interaction with interactive surfaces to provide user assistance as well as to help address common surface interaction issues, such as precisions. Design dimensions and considerations are discussed, and potential hover interaction techniques are proposed. These techniques emphasize the use of animation to facilitate user engagement and improve the overall user experience.

Dynamic Tangible User Interface Palettes

Graphics editors often suffer from a large number of tool palettes that compete with valuable document space. To address this problem and to bring back physical affordances similar to a painter’s palette, we propose to augment a digital tabletop with spatially tracked handheld displays. These displays are dynamically updated depending on their spatial location. We introduce the concept of spatial Work Zones that take up distinct 3D regions above the table surface and serve as physical containers for digital content that is organized as stacks of horizontal layers. Spatial Work Zones are represented either by physical objects or on-screen on the tabletop. Associated layers can be explored fluently by entering a spatial Work Zone with a handheld display. This provides quick access and seamless changes between tools and parts of the document that are instantly functional, i.e., ready to be used by a digital pen. We discuss several use cases illustrating our techniques and setting them into context with previous systems. Early user feedback indicates that combining dynamic GUI functionality with the physicality of spatially tracked handheld displays is promising and can be generalized beyond graphics editing.

Studying Attraction Power in Proxemics-Based Visual Concepts for Large Public Interactive Displays

A key challenge in designing interfaces for large interactive displays deployed in public settings is to draw (and keep) a passerbys attention. Proxemic interactions--a design approach that applies human spatial behavior to guide system behavior in response to a users proximity to a display--has been proposed for attracting and engaging potential users. Yet, the effectiveness of this approach has not been evaluated. Moreover, little research exists in the broader literature on the relative efficacy of possible visual design strategies to attract and engage large display users. We conducted a study to the effectiveness of promising visual concepts applied in a proxemic interactions framework: content motion and user shadows. While both visual concepts were more effective than a control condition at capturing attention, the inclusion of users shadow was found to have stronger attraction power than content motion alone. In contrast, they were found to be ineffective for communicating possible user interactions in the display, limiting their potential to facilitate further system use.

Interactive surface technology for a mobile command centre

In this paper, Contextual Inquiry is used to analyze the work inside a mobile command centre of a volunteer group, which provides specialized services and equipment to support events ranging from community-sponsored events to emergency incidents. The suitability and feasibility of utilizing interactive surface technology to support collaboration and coordination, using the mobile command centre as a hub for multiple agencies, are examined. Findings and lessons learned from this work can also inform the design of such technology for more general event organization and emergency response settings.

Investigating attraction and engagement of animation on large interactive walls in public settings

Large interactive walls capable of delivering dynamic content to broad audiences are becoming increasingly common in public areas for information dissemination, advertising, and entertainment purposes. A major design challenge for these systems is to entice and engage passersby to interact with the system, and in a manner intended by the designers. To address this issue, we are examining the use of different types of animation at various stages of the interaction as someone approaches and begins interacting with the system. Using usage measures from museum studies, namely, attraction and engagement of an exhibit, we plan to assess the effectiveness of different types of animation in the context of an interactive notice board application in a university campus. We describe our design approach and plans for studying the animation design in a real-world public setting.

Improving Interaction Discoverability in Large Public Interactive Displays

There is increasing interest in utilizing large, interactive displays in public spaces such as museums, retail stores, information centres, etc. in order to provide a more engaging user experience. Yet, prior studies have consistently reported that these systems are underutilized and, thus, not providing the desired user experience. My thesis aims to model the underlying interaction process with public interactive displays. A descriptive model of this interaction process will allow researchers and practitioners to better understand the unique design issues of these systems. It will also help specify existing and potential design advice, in order to better understand which stages of the process this design advice addresses, and which stages need more attention. My thesis also aims to develop a laboratory-based experimental methodology that enables more rapid and controlled evaluation of potential interaction design strategies for public interactive displays. My research is expected to provide insights for readers to design and build better and more usable large interactive systems for public settings.